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ASIC Design Choices And IDM Supply Options

July 20, 2006
A SIC design isn't for the faint of heart. Success requires expertise, and the challenges increase with the movement to submicron designs. Yet with the complexities of ASIC design, customers will often leave performance on the table. Partnering with an

A SIC design isn't for the faint of heart. Success requires expertise, and the challenges increase with the movement to submicron designs. Yet with the complexities of ASIC design, customers will often leave performance on the table.

Partnering with an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) that understands the process can let customers focus their resources where they can add the most value, the design itself. The IDM can manage the other areas of the process, speeding time-to-market by eliminating the need for handoffs with multiple vendors at various points in the cycle. Working closely with an IDM, customers can develop optimized products that work the first time.

Three popular approaches for creating an ASIC are cell-based ASICs, gate arrays, and structured ASICs. IDMs will support one or more approaches, offering varying degrees of assistance for each step in the development process, from design through to packaging and assembly.

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About the Author

William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

I am Editor of Electronic Design focusing on embedded, software, and systems. As Senior Content Director, I also manage Microwaves & RF and I work with a great team of editors to provide engineers, programmers, developers and technical managers with interesting and useful articles and videos on a regular basis. Check out our free newsletters to see the latest content.

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I earned a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in Computer Science from Rutgers University. I still do a bit of programming using everything from C and C++ to Rust and Ada/SPARK. I do a bit of PHP programming for Drupal websites. I have posted a few Drupal modules.  

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