Section 3 ASIC Industry Trends

3 ASIC INDUSTRY TRENDS INTRODUCTION The term ASIC (Application Specific IC) has been a misnomer from the very beginning. ASICs, as now known in the IC industry, are really customer specific ICs. In other words, the gate array or standard cell device is specifically made for one customer. ASIC, if taken literally, would mean the device is created for one particular type of system (e.g., a disk-drive), even if this device is sold to numerous customers and/or is put in the IC manufacturerÕs catalog. Currently, a device type that is sold to more than one user, even if it is produced using ASIC technology, is considered a standard IC. Thus, we are left with the following nomenclature guidelines (Figure 3-1). ASIC: A device produced for only one customer. PLDs are included as ASICs because the customer “programs” that device for its needs only. CSIC: What ASICs should have been called from the beginning. Some companies differentiate an ASIC from a CSIC by who completes or is responsible for the majority of the IC design effort. If it is the IC producer, the part is labeled a CSIC, if it is the end-user, the device is called an ASIC. This term is not currently used very often in the IC industry. ASSP: A relatively new term for ICs targeting specific types of systems. In many cases the IC will be manufactured using ASIC technology (e.g., gate or linear array or standard cell techniques) but will ultimately be sold as a standard device type to numerous users (i.e., put into a product catolog). If the end-user helped the IC producer design the ASSP, that user is typically given a market leadtime (i.e., window of opportunity) to use the device before it is made available to its competitors. CSP: Customizable Standard Products are 70 to 90 percent standard with 10 to 30 percent of the chip available for user-specified logic, memory, or peripheral functions. A CSP can be an ASIC device if it is sold to only one customer. Source: ICE, "Status 1997" 19181B Figure 3-1. ASIC Industry Terminology INTEGRATED CIRCUIT ENGINEERING CORPORATION 3-1 ASIC Industry Trends One problem many IC producers have run into while producing ASSPs is that in order to provide the optimum part, the IC producer must understand the system application at least as well as the end-user. Because this system-level expertise is not easy to acquire, most ASSP vendors have formed close relationships or partnerships with end-users. In this way, the IC vendor and end-user work closely together early in the system design cycle in order to properly define the ASSP device. In general, as standard ICs take aim at ever finer segments of the marketplace, they ultimately evolve into ASSPs. In other words, at some point in time there could be very few standard ICs; most devices produced would be aimed at specific system needs. An example would be certain DRAMs architecturally optimized for a hand-held telecom system, laptop PC, or HDTV set. This is precisely the direction the IC industry is heading. As IC producers customize their devices for specific system needs, the list of ICs labeled as ASSPs continues to expand. In 1996, VLSI Technology introduced a two-chip ASSP product based upon the ARM6 RISC 32-bit MPU core (Figure 3-2). The GSM communications chips are produced using VLSIÕs 0.6µm CMOS cell-based technology. It doesnÕt take too much imagination to visual- ize a one-chip ASSP solution sometime in the near future. As was mentioned earlier, 20 years from now there may be few ÒstandardÓ ICs produced. Layers 2 and 3 GSM Protocol Layer 1 Software VP22002 GSM Kernel VP22020 GSM Vocoder Adaptive Channel Speech Radio A/D D/A Speaker Equalizer Decoder Decoder Rx Decrypt Comfort Control VAD Noise µcontroller Synthesis Timer Speech A/D Microphone Encoder Channel Display Echo Tx Coder D/A GMSK Canceller Decrypt Keyboard Speech Smart Card Recognition Source: VLSI Technology/ICE, "Status 1997" 21033 Figure 3-2. A Two-Chip GSM ASSP Chip-Set From VLSI Technology 3-2 INTEGRATED CIRCUIT ENGINEERING CORPORATION ASIC Industry Trends In mid-1995, Motorola introduced the concept of the CSP (Figure 3-3). As was shown in Figure 3- 1, the CSP product allows a small portion of user-specific logic to be introduced into a standard product design. The customized logic can be CFBÕs (complex function blocks; e.g., an ATM cell processor) or other circuitry from MotorolaÕs standard cell or gate array libraries. ASSP Application MC92xxx Specific Standard CFB Product CSP Customizable Platform Diffused Memory Customizable Architectures Standard Standard Product User-Specific Logic CFB-Library CFBs- CSP Elements Application Customizable Driven Standard USL Product Source: Integrated System Design/Motorola/ICE, "Status 1997" 21034 Figure 3-3. MotorolaÕs CSP Design Flow Basically, an ASSPÕs circuitry is entirely designed by the IC producer. A CSP device always con- tains some of the end usersÕ unique circuit design or circuit interconnection. A CSP is usually classified as an ASIC device because it is sold only to the customer that defined the unique circuitry portion of the chip. Moreover, like an ASIC device, MotorolaÕs CSP program has NREÕs (starting at $100K) and design cycle times that are typically about 90 days. Although the 1996 ASIC market was about $17 billion, the ASSP-type products (which are part of the special purpose MOS Logic category) are taking away some of its momentum (Figure 3-4). Overall, the ASIC market (not including full custom) is forecast to follow total IC industry growth rates fairly closely. Does the proliferation of ASSPs and more customer-specific standard products mean an end to the ASIC market? No. This is because most of the pros and cons of ASICs versus ASSPs or standard products still exist. The primary advantage of ASSPs or standard products is the ability to immediately (most of the time) purchase the ICs and get the system to market quickly. However, ASIC devices allow the system producer to differentiate its product from the competition. The result is that many times the system producer is able to gain marketshare and/or better profit margins. INTEGRATED CIRCUIT ENGINEERING CORPORATION 3-3 ASIC Industry Trends 8 7.39 –13% 7 24% 6.47 5.98 6 26% 5 4.74 26% 4 3.75 3 Billions of Dollars 2 1 0 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 Year (EST) Source: ICE, "Status 1997" 20204C Figure 3-4. Special Purpose MOS Logic Market (1992-1996) In some cases standard products and ASICs are merging in an attempt to offer the benefits of both approaches. In 1993, TI announced that it was merging an enhanced version of its standard fixed- point TMS320C25 DSP chip and 15,000 usable and customizable 0.8-micron CMOS gate-array gates on one device. Thus, the user is able to take advantage of well characterized high-performance DSP circuitry while at the same time adding unique features to give its system a differential advantage over its competitors. It is estimated that about 35 percent of TIÕs total DSP IC sales in 1996 were in a customizable version. This percentage is expected to rise to over 50 percent in 2001. Another gray area is where Cirrus Logic takes one of its ASSP ICs and customizes a portion of it for one of its customers. Typically only about 5-10 percent of the new design is customized for the end-user. This ÒtweakedÓ device is still normally classified as an ASSP since the majority of the circuitry is still ASSP-based. There is no question that the IC industry will continue to evolve toward devices that are specifically suited for the customersÕ needs. ICE believes that various versions of ASICs (e.g., CSPs) and ASSPs will co-exist to help serve those needs in the most economical and efficient manner possible. 3-4 INTEGRATED CIRCUIT ENGINEERING CORPORATION ASIC Industry Trends ASIC Definitions Some basic definitions and classifications are shown below in order to define what ICE means when using the various terms used to describe todayÕs ASIC devices. ASIC stands for Application Specific Integrated Circuit and according to ICEÕs definition includes gate arrays, standard cells (sometimes called cell-based), full custom, and programmable logic devices (PLDs). These devices are classified as either semicustom, custom, or PLDs. Formal definitions are given in Figure 3-5. ICE does not include ASSPs in its ASIC market figures. An example of an ASSP part that is not classified as an ASIC by ICE is HitachiÕs H8/300H Series of microcontrollers. Although the H8/300H user is able to customize this MCU using an extensive Hitachi cell library, the finished devices are almost always allowed to be sold to other Hitachi customers after a certain period of time (Motorola has a similar program using its 68HC05 MCUs). Motorola also has its ÒFlexCoreÓ program that allows the end-user to use its 32-bit MPUs as cores in cell-based designs. This program is significantly different from its, and HitachiÕs, MCU ASSP offerings in that the finished devices will most likely stay proprietary to the original customer. Thus, these devices are considered to be standard cell ASICs. The FlexCore- and CSP-type ASIC programs* are prime examples of why ASSPs will not eliminate the market for ASICs. As was mentioned earlier, ASSPs will still hold an advantage in time-to- market, but they will never be able to compete with the product differentiation capability of robust ASIC offerings such as FlexCore and CSP.

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