Product category:
Microprocessors, Microcontrollers and DSPs
News Release from: AMI Semiconductor | Subject: XPA-HD
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 18 July 2003
Process boosts structured ASIC density
With more than two million fully programmable gates plus memory, the higher-density XPressArray (XPA-HD) offers 40% more density than AMI Semiconductor's existing XpressArray offering.
With more than two million fully programmable gates plus memory, the higher-density XPressArray (XPA-HD) offers 40% more density than AMI Semiconductor's existing XpressArray offering AMIS was the first semiconductor company to move a 0.18um structured ASIC into production and is currently shipping prototypes in 10 days or less from customer sign-off, the quickest prototype cycle time in the industry
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 26 Mar 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Array aimed at FPGA conversions
AMI Semiconductor (AMIS) has launched a 0.18-micron hybrid gate array for medium-density high-speed 1.8V ASICs and FPGA-to-ASIC conversions.
"A market window has opened for a new breed of ASIC products that can offer customers quicker time-to-market and lower overall design costs".
Implemented with hybrid technology comprising 0.18um TSMC wafers that are finished by AMI Semiconductor in its own metallisation process, XPressArray is designed from the ground up with FPGA conversions in mind.
XPressArray customers can prototype using existing FPGA tools of their choice, which reduces development cost, and eliminates the need to purchase and learn new toolsets.
XPressArray customers can also select from embedded IP that includes DLL, PLL and RAM blocks that match the leading FPGA products.
"Our hybrid production approach is unique among structured ASIC vendors and provides our customers with tremendous benefits", said Vince Hopkin, Vice President of the AMIS digital ASIC business unit.
"After TSMC completes 60 to 70% of the production process, we perform the final metallisation on XPressArray wafers in our own fabs, providing our customers the best of both worlds.
They get all the advantages of the TSMC state-of-the-art technology combined with the control and significantly lower reticle costs provided by our programmable metallisation process.
This programmable metallisation process simplifies timing closure while simultaneously increasing gate utilisation".
NRE costs for typical XPressArray products range from $80,000-200,000, which are 30-50% of the NREs for cell-based ASICs.
Overall unit costs for XPA-HD devices are as low as $6 in annual volumes of 50,000 units.
The XPA-HD version offers system clock speeds up to 200MHz and local clocks up to 350MHz.
XPA-HD devices are available in a variety of package options.
XPressArray family members offer between 64K and 2.6M gates, up to 200K internal registers and up to 1.4Mbit of embedded RAM.
RAM may be configured as single or dual port with asymmetrical port widths.
The architecture allows each RAM bit to be initialised through a metal mask option.
Flexible I/O technology includes fully configurable core and I/O power supply pads and support for the industry's widest range of I/O standards including PCI-X, HSTL, SSTL, GTL and 622Mbit/s LVDS.
Comprehensive clock management circuitry features up to 12 all digital delay-locked loops and a maximum of four phase-locked loops.
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