QuickLogic Corporation’s (NASDAQ: QUIK) eFPGA technology becomes the first rad-hard embedded FPGA IP to be enabled for SkyWater’s RH90 process. The two companies have teamed up to make a fast boot rad-hard eFPGA IP available to SkyWater’s 90 nm rad-hard (RH90) process users. This technology can be embedded as an IP core in ASIC and SoC devices or implemented as a custom rad-hard FPGA for mission critical and/or ruggedized applications.
Embedded FPGA IP provides a host of benefits to its users. Its reprogrammable technology enables post-manufacturing design flexibility, which allows single SoC or ASIC designs to serve multiple related applications – or easily adapt to changing standards or mission-specific requirements. It also supports customized implementations for intellectual property protection and offloading and hardware acceleration for artificial intelligence / machine learning applications. For defense and other long life cycle applications, eFPGA technology extends device lifetime by enabling customers’ SoCs and ASICs to accommodate system-level changes without incurring the high costs of creating and qualifying a new device. Another key benefit for this eFPGA IP implementation is the “fast boot” feature. Typical discrete FPGAs and eFPGA IPs can require hundreds of milliseconds to load their intended configuration. Through QuickLogic’s architecture innovations, this new eFPGA IP supports sub-100 microsecond boot times, independent of gate count, which is over 1000X better than traditional approaches.
Rad-hard applications depend on high-reliability devices that perform in the harshest environments, including exposure to high radiation levels. SkyWater’s RH90 fully-depleted SOI process will meet the needs of strategic military, aerospace and commercial applications for higher density, smaller physical size, and higher performance devices. Development of this advanced process was enabled by the previously announced investment in SkyWater’s facility expansion and technology development made under the DOD’s Trusted and Assured Microelectronics program.
This collaboration with QuickLogic expands a developing ecosystem that will enable a wide spectrum of advanced solutions for extreme environments. Moreover, customers producing rad-hard devices will benefit from SkyWater’s decades of commercially focused manufacturing heritage for demanding end markets as well as from SkyWater’s high quality standards for low and high-volume designs.
“Customers needing rad-hard eFPGA implementations will find a great solution in SkyWater’s RH90 process,” said Brian Faith, QuickLogic’s CEO. “SkyWater offers the only onshore, Trusted, 90nm rad hard by process technology. The RH90 process supports increased density of circuits which improves speed and performance for digital applications.”
“QuickLogic’s eFPGA technology is a key element of our RH90 technology platform,” said Steve Kosier, SkyWater’s chief technology officer. “By embedding this IP, customers can gain nearly any level of post-manufacturing design flexibility for their ASIC and SoC devices while extending the applicability and longevity of their products. This is particularly valuable and important for strategic rad hard applications.”
ASIC and SoC developers can benefit from QuickLogic’s Australis eFPGA IP Generator, a tool that creates the eFPGA IP cores in a highly automated way, from definition to delivery of customized eFPGA IP. The tool is based on the OpenFPGA workflow and adds features specific to implementing QuickLogic’s eFPGA IP solutions and provides the level of testing and support required for users to build devices capable of operating in the harshest of environments.
Designs implemented using QuickLogic’s eFPGA technology are supported using the company’s proprietary software development tools as well as the OpenFPGA open-source tool flow and a wide range of QuickLogic-provided and third-party sourced development kits.
