Flex Logix Collaborating with Microsoft to Help Build Secure State-of-the-Art Chips for US Department of Defense (DoD)

The proven success of Flex Logix’s eFPGA in over a dozen successful tape-outs demonstrates its eFPGA IP maturity which is critical to be part of the core technology used in the DoD’s Rapid Assured Microelectronics Prototypes (RAMP)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – July 11, 2022 – Flex Logix Technologies, Inc., the leading supplier of embedded FPGA (eFPGA) IP, architecture and software, announced today that it has been selected to be part of a team of microelectronic industry leaders, led by Microsoft, to build a chip development platform with the utmost regard for security as demonstrated by the DoD RAMP Project. Flex Logix was chosen for its leading embedded (eFPGA) technology that enables chips to be reconfigurable after tape-out, allowing companies to adapt to new requirements, changing standards and protocols as needed.

“Security can mean a lot of different things. For eFPGA, it means providing a means for keeping circuitry secret by programming the eFPGA in a secure environment,“ said Geoff Tate, CEO and Co-founder of Flex Logix. “We’re honored to be working with Microsoft to bring Flex Logix’s eFPGA technology as part of their Advanced Commercial Capabilities project for the DoD RAMP program.”

The RAMP project intends to address and replace the obsolete practices utilized by the United States Government in support of state-of-the-art custom IC and system-on-chip design especially those associated with physical or “back-end” design. Given the long system lifetime of DoD systems, utilizing eFPGA provides the capability to make silicon changes to update algorithms or modify functionality and saves money by avoiding costly tape-outs and installation of replacement parts.

"Our collaboration with Flex Logix will help to advance flexibility to chip design," said Mujtaba Hamid, General Manager, Silicon, Modeling and Simulation, Microsoft. "The company’s eFPGA technology has demonstrated success in supporting mission-critical applications and we look forward to bringing this capability to support national security priorities."

Using Flex Logix’s EFLX, chip developers can implement eFPGA from a few thousand LUTs to hundreds of thousands of LUTs with performance and density per square millimeter similar to leading FPGA companies in the same process generation. EFLX eFPGA is modular so arrays can be spread throughout the chip, can have all-logic or be heavy-DSP, and can integrate RAM in an array of many types.

Leveraging Flex Logix’s patented interconnect used in EFLX, Flex Logix has developed InferX, an AI inferencing tensor accelerator that delivers the highest throughput per dollar compared to other edge inferencing solutions. The combination of EFLX, InferX and a host processor creates a cohesive programmable and reconfigurable cognitive system.

Product briefs for EFLX eFPGA are available now at https://www.flex-logix.com/resources/

About Flex Logix

Flex Logix is a reconfigurable computing company providing AI inference and eFPGA solutions Flex Logix is a reconfigurable computing company providing AI inference and eFPGA solutions based on software, systems and silicon. Its InferX X1 is the industry’s most-efficient AI edge inference accelerator that will bring AI to the masses in high-volume applications by providing much higher inference throughput per dollar and per watt. Flex Logix’s eFPGA platform enables chips to flexibly handle changing protocols, standards, algorithms, and customer needs and to implement reconfigurable accelerators that speed key workloads 30-100x compared to general purpose processors. Flex Logix is headquartered in Mountain View, California and has offices in Austin, Texas. For more information, visit https://flex-logix.com.