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| SiliconBlue ships FPGAs in volume |
| David Manners |
| Monday 11 November 2009, 12:02 |
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The low power FPGA start-up company, SiliconBlue, is shipping in volume to more than ten customers – the first time a start-up programmable logic company has got such a degree of market traction for over 20 years.
Built on TSMC’s standard 65nm low-power CMOS process, SiliconBlue’s iCE65 devices are single-chip, reconfigurable, SRAM-based devices that incorporate the company’s proprietary NVCM (Non-Volatile Configuration Memory) technology. |
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NVCM eliminates the need for an external flash PROM, making them an Asic alternative.
SiliconBlue’s SRAM-based FPGAa are targeted at highly-integrated, low power mobile applications such as feature phones, eBook readers, MIDs (mobile internet devices), portable POS terminals and digital still cameras.
“Much as the growth of traditional FPGAs was driven by the telecom boom of the 1990’s, the growth of mobileFPGA devices is being driven by the rate of innovation in today’s exploding mobile consumer market,” said Kapil Shankar, CEO of SiliconBlue.
"As we move through the design-in process with customers, it’s apparent that our mobileFPGA devices are providing the right solution at the right time,” said Shankar.
The adoption of SiliconBlue’s mobileFPGA family is based on its ability to support converging functions on portable battery-operated devices.
It can be difficult for hardware designers of products like feature phones and eBooks to meet this demand because of the constrained space, power and cost requirements they face, while the various semiconductor products that they use are not necessarily designed to work together.
By incorporating high capacity, low power, small packages, and ASIC-like prices, the iCE65 mobileFPGA family delivers the time-to-market benefit of programmable logic solutions to an emerging market sector.
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Devices are available in the most advanced small-form-factor packaging, including the industry’s first and only Wafer Level Chip Scale Package (WLCSP).
SiliconBlue’s design environment includes the iCEcube VHDL and Verilog-based development software, and the iCEman evaluation kit. |
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