Actel leverages UMC foundry solutions for 65nm eFlash FPGAs

The folks at Actel, who specialize in low-power and mixed-signal FPGAs, and UMC, a leading global semiconductor foundry, say that they are working together on the production of Actel's next generation flash-based FPGAs.

The new chips will be manufactured on UMC's 65nm low leakage process, and will take advantage of the foundry's 65nm embedded flash (eFlash) technology. Successful first-silicon demonstration of Actel's 65nm eFlash-based FPGA has already been achieved at UMC's 300mm Fabs.

Actel's unique flash-based technology has been the company's key differentiating factor, and the reason why it has been growing rapidly in the consumer, automotive, and industrial markets. FPGAs based on Actel's flash technology address power, size, and cost for a wide variety of applications.

UMC's 65nm CMOS technology is in volume production at the company's two 300mm fabs, with yield-proven customer products from all major sectors of the semiconductor industry. UMC's 65nm embedded flash technology is ready for customer design-in, with key modules ready and working silicon already achieved.

Compared to earlier products built on the 0.13-micron process node, UMC's 65nm eFlash technology will allow Actel's FPGAs to realize a 50% smaller cell size and a 3X speed gain to dramatically improve overall performance.