New life for old ASICs and FPGAs

Micro Circuit Engineering (MCE) is providing designers with an opportunity to upgrade obsolete ASICs or FPGAs by adding a second IC attached to the replicated old component.

Micro Circuit Engineering (MCE) is providing designers with an opportunity to upgrade obsolete ASICs or FPGAs by adding a second IC attached to the replicated old component.

The system is likely to be of particular use in applications where additional functionality needs to be added to an existing 'long lifetime' system during an uprating or refurbishment exercise.

This is common in military and industrial hardware which needs to be retained in service with enhanced electronics.

Typically in such situations MCE is called upon to produce new ASICs or FPGAs to match existing components where replacement originals cannot be obtained because the manufacturer no longer produces them.

MCE can replicate chips working from original design and production data or can reverse-engineer chips to match the original specifications.

Now MCE is able to take the service one stage further by adding a second chip with additional functionality (eg memory) which can be fitted within the original package cavity of the device.

The additional chip can be mounted on top of the replacement ASIC or FPGA and wire bond interconnections can be made to the underlying chip or to leadthroughs on the package substrate.

This approach offers an option to improve system performance even where it is not possible to add enhanced functionality to the replicated ASIC or FPGA design.

It can sometimes also be used as an economic alternative to redesigning the chip where the equipment manufacturer holds a stock of wafers with bare chips of the original design.

(This was Electronicstalk's Top Story on 17 December 2002).

(This was Electronicstalk's Top Story on 17 December 2002).

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