EAST FISHKILL, N.Y. -- IBM Corp.'s Microelectronics Division and Xilinx Inc. here today expanded their ties, announcing a major plan to enable a new class of "hybrid" chips based on ASICs and FPGAs.
Under the agreement, IBM has licensed FPGA technology from Xilinx for use in developing "hybrid" chip cores, based on IBM's new 90-nm (0.09-micron) process technology.
IBM and Xilinx will work to develop FPGAs cores within IBM's new 90-nm technology--dubbed Cu-08, which was introduced earlier this month (see June 10 story ). With today's announcement, a certain portion of these gates--generally between 20,000 and 400,000-- could be dedicated to one or more of the FPGA cores on an ASIC.
The move will enable the development of "hybrid" chips that combine the best attributes of standard ASICs and flexible FPGAs for use in communications, storage, and consumer applications.
"Savings here could be dramatic," said Michel Mayer, general manager, IBM Microelectronics, in a statement. "When an ASIC takes on more function, you can reduce cost by eliminating one, two or even more separate chips. With this technology, customers would be able to tweak designs and integrate new changes immediately, eliminating the need to restart a whole new design cycle, bringing tremendous time-to-market advantages," he said.
The new FPGA cores, now in development, are expected to be available from IBM embedded in an ASIC in early 2004, following IBM's full release of its Cu-08 technology.
The deal expands the ties between IBM of East Fishkill and Xilinx of San Jose. IBM supplies embedded PowerPC processors for Xilinx's FPGA devices. And in March, the companies signed a major, multi-million dollar silicon foundry agreement, under which IBM would manufacture Xilinx' Virtex-II Pro FPGAs.
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