Adaptive Silicon Introduces Industry's First Programmable Logic IP for Large System Chips.

Business Editors, High-Tech Writers

Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference 2001

MUNICH, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 12, 2001

New MSA 2500(TM) Programmable Logic Core(TM) Allows Chip Designers

to Reduce Project Risk and Cost and Accelerate Time to Market

Adaptive Silicon, Inc. (ASi) today announced the MSA 2500(TM) Programmable Logic Core(TM) (PLC(TM)) for application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and application-specific standard product (ASSP) system-on-chip (SoC) designs.

The licensable MSA 2500 PLC represents the first commercially available silicon intellectual property (IP) for embedded programmable logic.

"As the industry's first embedded programmable logic core, the MSA 2500 will enable ASIC and ASSP manufacturers to add the flexibility and reduce the engineering costs of FPGAs to their products," said Charlie Carinalli, chairman and CEO of Adaptive Silicon. "LSI Logic and Synopsys have supported our innovative design efforts, assuring both product quality and design methodology for implementation into large SoC designs."

Advantages of Embedded Programmable Logic

Embedded programmable logic permits the high-risk blocks of an SoC device to be modified after first silicon is produced. Consequently, such devices may be fabricated earlier in the development process without risking modification to the overall design or re-spinning the silicon. Embedding programmable logic also provides the flexibility to modify devices once they are shipped to customers. As a result, algorithms can be upgraded and changes in standards or protocols can be accommodated in applications like communications and image processing.

By architecting a family of products with embedded programmable logic, it is possible to produce a number of different silicon products from a single die, avoiding the increasing costs of masks, prototype silicon and parallel engineering development efforts.

Availability

ASi is licensing its embeddable programmable logic technology to ASIC manufacturers and semiconductor companies, and plans to qualify the technology on leading foundry processes for fabless semiconductor companies. The MSA 2500 technology has been fabricated on test chips and is available today in LSI Logic's 0.18-micron G12 process. Test chips will be qualified on TSMC's 0.18-micron process in the second quarter of 2001. Companies developing systems with ASICs or their own ASSPs may manufacture chips at both ASIC vendors and foundries.

"For the past 10 years we have been building up our SoC design capability," added Ronnie Vasishta, senior director, technology product marketing at LSI Logic. "We began by integrating microprocessors into our CoreWare libraries and have been adding application-specific IP all along the way. We believe that embedding programmable logic is the next wave of advancement in SoC technology and will keep LSI Logic in a market leadership position."

Applications

Embedded programmable logic is ideal for implementing sections of high-risk control logic in networking, wireless, multi-processor computer and image processing applications. For designs like networking products and wireless base station applications, which are marked by evolving standards, embedded programmable logic allows the design to be completed and the silicon built while changes are being made. What's more, changes are possible right up until the product is finally released to customers. For applications like network processor chips, where custom processors are often implemented, co-processor or instruction-level functions can be implemented to complement the primary processor functions.

MSA 2500 Capabilities

The MSA 2500 PLC is an advanced multi-scale array (MSA) technology built upon a programmable ALU-based architecture. The key to this unique architecture is that it provides much more efficient mapping of datapath functions than is possible using traditional PLD architectures. The basic building block is called a hex block and is made up of 64 four-bit ALUs. Hex blocks may be tiled in rectangular patterns; four-by-four matrixes are recommended. Capacities depend on the size of the MSA matrix and the type of logic implemented. For highly arithmetic functions, four-by-four arrays will achieve approximately 25,000 ASIC gate densities. For random, control logic functions, densities will be comparable to look-up table-based architectures, or about one-half the arithmetic function density. Multiple blocks may be instantiated in a single chip. A hierarchical routing architecture provides a rich level of interconnect to handle complex logic designs as well as datapath-oriented designs.

Several architectural features are designed into the array and the software to maximize performance. Timing-driven placement algorithms, combined with local and global routing, optimize the implementation to minimize delays. In addition, the ALU-based architecture includes an inherent, proprietary carry-look-ahead schema to maximize performance of arithmetic functions. To further enhance performance, the architecture is also rich in registers to allow efficient pipelining of designs.

Design Process Support

As the first commercial programmable logic IP, the MSA 2500 PLC is equipped with a complete family of software tools under the Millennium PLC(TM) product family name (see companion press release). As a result, it smoothly integrates the MSA 2500 into a SoC development flow and maps designs from RTL to the programmable hardware.

About Adaptive Silicon, Inc.

Adaptive Silicon, Inc. (ASi) is a privately financed silicon intellectual property (IP) company. ASi licenses the Programmable Logic Core (PLC), which semiconductor and systems companies embed into large system-chip ASSPs and ASICs. ASi is located in Los Gatos, California, and may be reached at 408/335-2700, or via the World Wide Web at [e-mail] or www.adaptivesilicon.com.

MSA 2500, Programmable Logic Core, PLC, and Millennium PLC are trademarks of Adaptive Silicon, Inc.