Samsung is now in discussions with a number of FPGA companies and EDA providers about the pros and cons of embedded FPGAs, which will allow designated logic gates to be programmed after a chip has been fabricated and packaged.

The technology would let Samsung's ASIC customers design a single device that could be used across multiple product lines. Samsung may also design its own standard products in this way, officials said.

The company said it would discuss its views Friday during a technical session on embedded FPGAs here at the Embedded Systems Conference here.

“We find that it's almost impossible to define the perfect product for customers. In many cases they want to add their own encryption technology, for example. For that reason we think having pieces of programmable logic embedded in an ASSP or ASIC makes sense,” said Benson Cheung, director of business development at Samsung Semiconductor, (San Jose, Calif.)

The company could design, for example, a communications chip that works either in a DSL or cable modem. “You can imagine a programmable block that can do either QAM encoding and decoding or DMT,” said Bob Burke, marketing director for Samsung's system LSI division.

To go this route, Samsung needs two major components: an FPGA fabric and a design methodology. On the hardware side, the company said it will consider acquiring technology from or partnering with vendors making standard FPGA chips, including Altera, Actel, QuickLogic and Xilinx. The company is also talking to smaller players promising new approaches, such as eASIC and Leopard Logic.

By: DocMemory
Copyright © 2023 CST, Inc. All Rights Reserved