4 ms·
Ignoring flexibility and cost/performance, this may be a sign that rapid chip fab turnaround times are possible. These were made by Pragmatic Semiconductor [1],
by alted 2y ago
Ignoring flexibility and cost/performance, this may be a sign that rapid chip fab turnaround times are possible. These were made by Pragmatic Semiconductor [1], who claim they can make chips within 48 hours and deliver within 4 weeks (likely due to their use of unconventional materials). Traditional silicon fabs, including trailing-edge foundries and TSMC, take 2-9 months. I do wish they'd emphasized this instead of flexibility.
[1] https://www.pragmaticsemi.com/ https://www.pragmaticsemi.com/
- IshKebab 2y agoYeah but traditional silicon fabs aren't making 12k gate chips.
- Teever 2y agoWhat's the turn around time on 12k gate chips from a traditional fab?
- dragontamer 2y agoJust googling really quick: the Lattice Semiconductor LFE5U-12 is a 12k-LUT FPGA (and a LUT is way more flexible than a gate). So realistically, if you need fully custom digital logic, you'd buy LFE5U-12 instead and program that. So that's $16 FPGA from widely available distributors (like Digikey) who likely can afford 1 or 2 day shipping. ------------- Custom chip design for a flex-circuit is interesting, but only if you have substantial analog parts that cannot be easily implemented by an FPGA.
- rkangel 2y agoThe power profile of an FPGA is very different (worse) than dedicated silicon. Both the background current and cost of a gate switch. There are a lot of situations where that isn't acceptable.
- londons_explore 2y agoI suspect the power profile of an FPGA is better than this flex-silicon...
- rkangel 2y agoTrue, that's definitely possible. I was giving the habitual answer (that I occasionally need to explain to a client at work) why you need to spend $2m having an ASIC made when "it's just digital logic and we got the prototype going in a month" They usually care about at least one of - size, power, cost.