Product category: Intellectual Property Cores
News Release from: LSI Europe | Subject: RapidChip
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 6 September 2002
Platform provides faster
route to custom circuits
Redefining the custom semiconductor market that it was instrumental in creating, LSI Logic has introduced a new semiconductor platform called RapidChip
Redefining the custom semiconductor market that it was instrumental in creating, LSI Logic has introduced a new semiconductor platform called RapidChip, complete with a new customer-centric design methodology and toolset. Combining LSI Logic's high-performance CoreWare intellectual property (IP) library, customisable logic, and groundbreaking semiconductor design concepts, RapidChip halves time-to-market and will permanently change the way complex chips are designed and manufactured.
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 6 September 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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"There is a growing market segment that has evolved as a result of increasing pressure in the industry to create high-density chips faster, more predictably, and at a lower cost", said Jordan Selburn, principal analyst, iSupply Corporation.
"Application-focused design platforms that incorporate rapid programmability will relieve these growing pressures, and companies with this capability will have a solid opportunity to seize this new segment".
The design start through product delivery for RapidChip is approximately six months, comparable to an FPGA, but about half the time of a standard-cell ASIC.
Unit prices for RapidChip can be as low as 10% of a complex FPGA and total development costs can be as low as 20% of a normal standard-cell ASIC.
Another benefit of this new low-risk platform is the ability to quickly migrate a design to a full ASIC to achieve the lowest possible unit price.
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"RapidChip is specifically targeted at the emerging middle of the logic TAM that is largely underserved", said Wilfred J Corrigan, LSI Logic Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
"RapidChip employs our extensive library of proven intellectual property building blocks to address the demands of new communications, consumer and storage customers requiring lower silicon development costs and faster time-to-market".
The first RapidChip products are in design today and will be manufactured early next year using LSI Logic's G12 and Gflx (0.18 and 0.11-micron) process technologies at its world-class Gresham, Oregon, manufacturing campus and at its foundry partners.
G90 (90nm) versions of the new technology will be available for customer engagements in late 2003.
RapidChip will be available to LSI Logic customers through its direct sales channels and worldwide distribution partners.
"Our customers need the ability to configure their chips quickly with increased predictability at a lower cost", said Rick Marz, LSI Logic executive vice president of Communications and ASIC Technology.
"RapidChip provides a quick, deterministic design cycle with access to high-value IP that is proven, tested and pre-placed".
This new platform product combines the high-density, high-performance and proven IP benefits of cell-based ASICs with the customisation and fast time-to-market advantages of FPGAs.
The resulting combination considerably reduces the design-through-production cycle.
This is achieved through families of market-specific silicon platforms, which have been predefined and prefabricated to enable easily customisable designs.
The ease-of-use and customisation is realised through the methodology and user-defined metal layers.
Unique to RapidChip is the customer-friendly interface that dramatically simplifies the underlying complexity of the design tools and flows associated with SoC design.
Rule sets automatically manage architectural design, verification, and physical design.
As a result, design schedules for high-performance chips are very predictable.
"As the pioneer of standard cell ASICs and SoC design methodology, LSI Logic is uniquely qualified to bring this revolutionary product to market", said Chris Hamlin, chief technology officer for LSI Logic.
"No other company has our end-to-end experience for an initiative of this magnitude.
RapidChip represents a whole new design era and is destined to become the technology of choice".
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