News & Analysis
Comment
epa0723
"Contractor Mortgages":http://www.contractormortgages.com
epa0723
Adapting IP strategy is really tough. However as we know the demand are so high ...
Achronix 6 billion transistor FPGAs: Take two
Junko Yoshida
12/4/2012 10:45 AM EST
PARIS – Achronix’s new 6 billion-transistor device, the first FPGA to be built on a 22-nm manufacturing process at Intel Corp. and promised to start sampling this quarter, won’t arrive in the market until the first quarter of 2013.
The HD 1000, the first in the Achronix family of FPGAs designated Speedster 22i HD, was supposed to reach the market before the end of this year.
Achronix Chairman John Lofton Holt (left) said the delay stemmed from “our design issues." He called the delay “disappointing.”The Speedster22i HD family are SRAM-based, fully-reconfigurable FPGAs offering a familiar fabric architecture consisting of synchronous look-up tables, flops, muxes, carry chains, memories and multipliers, according to Achronix. Integrated with a variety of high-speed data communications interfaces, the Speedster22i FPGAs are designed to work in networking and telecommunications equipment.
Despite the delay, Holt said he remains confident about the HD 1000’s rollout early next year, insisting that the flagship FPGAs remain the company’s core business.
The delay, coming as Achronix is rolling out its strategy to enter the embedded FPGA IP business (disclosed several weeks prior to the product delay disclosure), could raise questions about where the eight-year-old FPGA company is headed. A fabless chip company entering the IP business is generally a long shot since the strategy requires an entirely new business model for a much tougher market.
IP licensing is an inherently long-term business. Before IP licensors can even think about royalties, licensees must first successfully design SoCs by using the licensed IP, then their chips must take off quickly when they hit the market.
Asked about it, the Achronix chairman laughed. “Yes, I know. The IP business tends to get people worried.”
Holt added that Achronix is not altering its business model. “Our core business still remains in high-performance, high-density FPGAs."
|
|
|
|
|
Navigate to related information
iniewski
12/4/2012 11:52 AM EST
Going to the IP model is risky as you say Junko as that stretches your revenue stream significantly out...but if it doesn't kill you you will leave longer! Kris
Sign in to Reply
me
12/4/2012 12:18 PM EST
No demand for the physical chip?
Who want the IP, Intel?
Is Tabula's chip out yet?
Sign in to Reply
junko.yoshida
12/4/2012 12:37 PM EST
Good questions. At this point, Achronix is not naming names in terms of its potential customers or potential licensees.
But there appear to be demands for their physical chip. Who would be the first embedded FPGA IP licensee would be an interesting story to follow.
Sign in to Reply
Brian Fuller2
12/4/2012 12:50 PM EST
The IP strategy will be a tough, tough row to hoe... But remember, they're pretty much attached to Intel's hip and that's probably, long term, where the ip makes sense... especially as guys like Mark Bohr are saying the fabless model is dead.
Sign in to Reply
me
12/4/2012 1:20 PM EST
If intel can turn out 5nm FPGA fabric in huge quantities, there may not be a need for foundries.
Sign in to Reply
resistion
12/5/2012 12:21 AM EST
It may moot since IP will be more limited at smaller nodes.
Sign in to Reply
kjdsfkjdshfkdshfvc
12/5/2012 10:20 AM EST
how so resistion, perhaps i don't understand your meaning/reasoning there ?
lets say you have a given IP (Intellectual Property) for a generic SIMD engine with the same throughput as Neon, then as the node shrink's you can fit more interconnected engines together, and so less limited not more.
you may want to give better discount's per cluster of SIMD engine as it shrinks to make your version more popular than the competitors in the global markets rather than the old school fixed pricing etc.
Sign in to Reply
resistion
12/5/2012 10:46 AM EST
Yes that's true by old school thought, but actually 28 nm and below, there are substantial material changes on all critical layers, plus litho constraints, you can't just work with any drawing you have.
Sign in to Reply
fundamentals
12/5/2012 11:42 AM EST
The last succesful FPGA start-up company was Actel, who shipped their first product in 1988. You could say "it's been a while since then". Indeed, but not for lack of trying. More than 25 start-ups have tried and failed. Most failed by the nature of their FPGAs, and a few failed by the market barriers erected by the four FPGA vendors. You cannot make a business out of FPGAs by making a new FPGA that is slightly faster or slightly cheaper than what is out there. To succeed you must double the FPGA performance or cut the price-per-LUT by half. Acronix long ago claimed to have done the first of these, but they could not deliver on that promise, even with Intel's fanciest process. So they change the business model to survive for a little while longer. Everybody comments on how tough the IP business is, but the FPGA business is much tougher. Their new tack is an acknowledgement of this fact.
Sign in to Reply
Roba66
12/5/2012 1:31 PM EST
The devices announced by Archronix are designed for backend fabric, they are loaded with serdes. It seems odd that Holt is talking about mobile applications: power management is very weak in FPGAs, maybe they have a different kind of configurability in mind, to knit together some Intel IP.
I have not seen anything about design software yet from this company, which is normally a big concern for FPGAs. It makes me think Intel may have more of a hand in the overall enterprise here than is evident at this point.
Sign in to Reply
jg_
12/6/2012 5:16 PM EST
I think the 'mobile applications' has an inferred 'Mobile infrastructure applications' - and certainly those base stations care far less about power, than throughput and flexibility.
Sign in to Reply
resistion
12/5/2012 11:57 PM EST
The next question is how far can they get without interposer?
Sign in to Reply
song-chou-1
12/6/2012 11:13 AM EST
We hear even with Intel matching TSMC with die-pricing (a loss leader for Intel), Achronix 22nm part is not competitive (power and leakage) with other FPGA.
why part not sampling
why Achronix needs to change business model
Sign in to Reply
Kevin N
12/6/2012 11:27 PM EST
So what's the story with these FPGAs? Are they really clockless, as the name states, or did they abandon that scheme?
Sign in to Reply
Kevin N
12/7/2012 12:36 AM EST
These small FPGA companies need some good 3rd-party tools. They can hand off the synthesis to Synplify, but somebody needs to make some 3rd-party place & route tool that can service all these little FPGA companies. Surely 80% of the work is common to different architectures.
Sign in to Reply
betajet
12/7/2012 3:09 PM EST
IMO what FPGA vendors need (and what they've always needed) is to open up their architectures and bit stream formats so that FLOSS software developers can take a crack at it. There are myriad applications for FPGAs that aren't progressing well because it's too cumbersome to use the vendors' tools. These include reconfigurable computing and specialized high-performance parallel architecture. It's just too hard to make progress in these areas with vendor tools so the people working in those areas simply do it in other ways, causing FPGA vendors to miss out on a lot of opportunity and miss out on the savings of letting others write their tools.
JMO/YMMV
Sign in to Reply
epa0723
1/29/2013 9:04 PM EST
Adapting IP strategy is really tough. However as we know the demand are so high and it boost up the marketplace. - [url=http://o2media.us/contact-o2-media/]O2 Media[/url]
Sign in to Reply
epa0723
1/29/2013 9:11 PM EST
"Contractor Mortgages":http://www.contractormortgages.com
Sign in to Reply