Tier Logic introduces the world's first 3D FPGA
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From: whygee on 13 Mar 2010 08:54 hi rick ! rickman wrote: > On Mar 11, 4:31 pm, whygee <y...(a)yg.yg> wrote: >> Now before you can save me money, try to beat SBt, >> and then... beat the others :-P >> The Actel ProAsic3 family is working very fine >> for me and wonder how it can be displaced. >> >> good luck, > > I'm curious, how many devices do you use in a year. less than you :-) I have been qualified as a "creative" kind of guy by the Actel France manager. I have a very small, specialised niche market around Paris and I love it this way. > I will bet if you use less than 100k and possibly, > 1 million, you won't get their attention or even a quote. I can get quotes from others, so why not from TierLogic ? > Any takers? I'm curious :-) > Rick yg -- http://ygdes.com / http://yasep.org
From: whygee on 13 Mar 2010 08:59 John_H wrote: > They quoted "free NRE" for a purchase commitment of $100k, I believe. > So if you want $100k worth of parts, I think they're already on board. It just mean that their scheme accepts cheques > $100K ;-) > I just don't have a clue as to whether these are low cost and > performance devices, high performance and high density chips, or just > what they're shooting for. I don't even see a simple mention of the characteristics of the actual devices proposed. How many LUTs ? what goodies ? (PLL ? ROM ? SRAM ? DDR ?...) > Whatever. yups. -- http://ygdes.com / http://yasep.org
From: Raymund Hofmann on 13 Mar 2010 18:06 On 10 Mrz., 17:46, Tier Logic <jeff.ka...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > The world's first 3D FPGA has arrived! We have a very compelling and > cost effective solution. > > Come check it out folks.www.tierlogic.com In my effort checking this out i also checked out: www.easic.com Promises to reduce the power&area problem of SRAM-FPGA by routing a "FPGA-like" structured master with a via layer manufactured by e-beam lithography. They claim "no NRE" FPGA-like development, but it looks like more work and more expensive to me. But can be considered reprogrammable, if you have a few weeks and money for each reprogramming. nupga.com I guess they rather look for licensees of their reprogrammable antifuse technology. But then a very similar approach as Tierlogic, also called 3D.
From: rickman on 13 Mar 2010 22:31 On Mar 13, 8:04 am, John_H <newsgr...(a)johnhandwork.com> wrote: > On Mar 12, 10:22 pm, rickman <gnu...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > I'm curious, how many devices do you use in a year. I will bet if you > > use less than 100k and possibly, 1 million, you won't get their > > attention or even a quote. > > > Any takers? > > > Rick > > They quoted "free NRE" for a purchase commitment of $100k, I believe. > So if you want $100k worth of parts, I think they're already on board. > > I just don't have a clue as to whether these are low cost and > performance devices, high performance and high density chips, or just > what they're shooting for. If they don't hit the aggressive > production nodes for the base layers (with a coarser layer 9 metal > mask process for a cheaper customization) then how can they truly > compete on the piece costs given the overhead for routing resources? > > Whatever. Costs are a complex issue. Lattice does not use the same process feature size as X or A and yet is very price competitive. X and A are going for the highest technology to gain the optimum advantage in the high end markets they focus on. But you can save a lot of NRE by hanging back a generation or two and using less expensive and more fully depreciated equipment. It all depends on what you are trying to build. If you don't want to put a billion transistors on a die, or don't want to pay for that, then less aggressive technology can be very cost competitive. As an example, show me a part from Xilinx or Altera that sells for under $10 in qty 100. I don't care what size, but an FPGA, not a CPLD. I am using the smallest part I can get (although I would like bigger, it just doesn't come in the 100 TQFP) and am paying under $10 making batches of 100-200 boards at a time. I couldn't find that price anywhere else but Lattice. Rick
From: rickman on 13 Mar 2010 22:35
On Mar 13, 8:54 am, whygee <y...(a)yg.yg> wrote: > hi rick ! > > rickman wrote: > > On Mar 11, 4:31 pm, whygee <y...(a)yg.yg> wrote: > >> Now before you can save me money, try to beat SBt, > >> and then... beat the others :-P > >> The Actel ProAsic3 family is working very fine > >> for me and wonder how it can be displaced. > > >> good luck, > > > I'm curious, how many devices do you use in a year. > > less than you :-) > > I have been qualified as a "creative" kind of guy by > the Actel France manager. I have a very small, specialised > niche market around Paris and I love it this way. > > > I will bet if you use less than 100k and possibly, > > > 1 million, you won't get their attention or even a quote. > I can get quotes from others, so why not from TierLogic ? I don't understand the question. The point is they can't make enough money from a small user to make it worth their while. So they exclude the engineers that won't make them much money and deal with the flak from that rather than get a bad rep from not being able to support every engineer with a wild hair. What part of this is hard to understand? Heck, I get my share of contacts from people who just want free advice. I have to cut them off at some point and continue to look for paying customers. Rick |