ASIC
anyone?
Has the world got the taste again for ASICs?
Socionext discusses the advantages associated with this technology
ASICs - Application-Specific
Integrated Circuits - came about
in the 1980s, as decreasing
costs for IC technology, new design
methods and powerful new software
tools emerged.
Previously, designing
semiconductors was the exclusive
domain of a number of very
specialised semiconductor
manufacturers, who had the means to
set up semiconductor production as
well as the technical expertise in IC
technology, production and design.
In subsequent years, the
semiconductor industry developed
rapidly and with the launch of
hardware description languages
as well as logic synthesis enabled
the now standard complex circuits
comprising several million logic gates
to be implemented on an ASIC.
CMOS (Complementary Metal
Oxide Semiconductor), the dominant
semiconductor technology, was also
undergoing continual miniaturisation
resulting in increased integration
density ao that by the mid-1980s,
CMOS technologies enabled minimal
structures of 1um to be implemented
on an IC. Today’s CMOS can offer
minimal structure sizes of 7nm.
Nevertheless, there are signs
that the speed of miniaturisation is
slowing. The minimal dimensions of
current transistors in the single-digit
nm range indicate that the simple,
planar CMOS production process
no longer functions at every point.
Transistors have now become so
small that physical effects such
can dominate and impair transistor
performance.
Manufacturers compensate for
this with innovative new production
methods and technological
innovations. From 16nm, for example,
all mainstream CMOS processes
work with FinFET transistors, which
reduce the short-channel effect in
CMOS. From 7nm, a very short-waved
ultraviolet light (EUV) is also used with
a wave length of 13.5nm to illuminate
the masks.
As a result, the costs for the
respective latest semiconductor
technology have continually risen in
recent years and ASIC customers have
started to feel the impact of increased
development costs.
In fact, developing ASICs for the
latest semiconductor technology only
makes economic sense if high unit
volumes are expected. Of course,
this also means that an ASIC with
the latest technology can be used by
significantly fewer customers than was
previously the case. As a result, the
ASIC industry has undergone a number
of significant changes in the past
decade. The number of ASIC providers
has fallen and it appeared that ASICs
would only remain of interest to a
minority of users. However, things
appear to be changing.
Why? Many applications are
currently evolving in a direction which
is predestined for ASIC, as they are
so innovative or the requirements are
so specific that there are no suitable
standard products available.
The automotive market is set
to become one of the largest ASIC
growth markets. The amount of
electrical components installed in cars
is increasing significantly driven by
demand for driverless cars, or at least
automated advanced driver assist
systems (ADAS), which is triggering
rapid developments in the field of
sensors (radar, lidar, optical sensors)
and in artificial intelligence.
Consumers now expect a variety
of communication, information
and entertainment equipment in
their vehicles such as smartphone
connectivity, displaying on-board and
environmental data as well as in-car
entertainment.
26 14 January 2020 www.newelectronics.co.uk
/www.newelectronics.co.uk