MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 25, 2019 –
Flex Logix to Demonstrate Boards at GLOBALFOUNDRIES Technology Conference (GTC)
– Flex Logix Technologies, Inc., the leading supplier of embedded FPGA (eFPGA) IP and software, today announced that it has received working first silicon of its validation chip for the EFLX 4K eFPGA IP cores running on GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) 12nm Leading-Performance (12LP) FinFET platform and newly announced 12LP+ solution. The chip is currently in characterization and Flex Logix will be demonstrating the evaluation board at the GLOBALFOUNDRIES Technology Conference (GTC 2019) on Tuesday, September 24 in Santa Clara California.
A validation chip consisting of 4 EFLX cores (2 DSP and 2 Logic, for a total of 14K LUT4s and 80 DSP MACs) with integrated RAM has been fabricated and is fully functional at GHz speeds. The chip is part-way through a full suite of characterization over process, temperature and voltage, and a validation report will be available shortly. EFLX evaluation boards on GF’s 12LP/12LP+ and 14nm Low Power Plus (14LPP) platform are available now for customers to run their RTL at full speed using on-chip PLLs and RAMs to verify performance and power.
“Flex Logix already has multiple licensed customers for EFLX on GF’s 12/14nm FinFET platforms with several in design, one who has already completed a risk tape-out, and many more in evaluation,” said Geoff Tate, CEO and co-founder of Flex Logix. “These customers benefit from the ability to have reconfigurable accelerators for critical workloads or for updating changing algorithms and protocols. This is particularly important in aerospace and communications applications where customers need the ability to accelerate critical workloads and reconfigure for changing algorithms and customer needs.”
While the Flex Logix validation chip was fabricated in GF’s 14LPP, the GDS is also compatible with GF’s 12LP and 12LP+ because the design was done with GF standard cells and register files.
The evaluation boards will be available for customers for short-term evaluation or for purchase. All boards come with documentation, examples, test benches and the EFLX Compiler.
“Having eFPGA available on our most advanced FinFET platform is a major competitive advantage to chip designers because it provides them with reconfigurability and flexibility,” said Michael Mendicino, vice president of Digital Technology Solutions at GF. “We believe that Flex Logix’s eFPGA is one of the leading solutions on the market and we look forward to bringing this innovation into production.”
The EFLX4K is based on Flex Logix’s Gen 2 architecture, which includes 6-input-LUTs, an improved interconnect for large-array performance, greater MAC pipelining, special logic for test acceleration, and configuration readback. The Gen 2 architecture has been implemented on multiple processes from 180nm to 12nm, all of which are supported by the same EFLX Compiler software tool.
About Flex Logix
Flex Logix, founded in March 2014, provides solutions for making flexible chips and accelerating neural network inference. Its eFPGA platform enables chips to be flexible to handle changing protocols, standards, algorithms and customer needs and to implement reconfigurable accelerators that speed key workloads 30-100x compared to processors. eFPGA is available for any array size on the most popular process nodes now with increasing customer adoption. Having raised more than $26 million of venture capital, Flex Logix is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and has sales rep offices in China, Europe, Israel, Japan, Taiwan and throughout the USA. More information can be obtained at http://www.flex-logix.com