New-Tech Europe Magazine | April 2017
to enhance its line card with custom devices and that allow maximum optimization and IP protection. A second scenario is System in Package (SiP) – miniaturization of existing customer board into a single package with several dies. Due to the ASIC mass production capabilities, we have a very strong packaging and test team and collaboration with Avnet enables access to bare dies of many vendors. This offering is unique, because any other SiP vendor has to find each die separately. SiP solutions usually very attractive for area saving and power improvement, their NRE is relatively low and time to market is fast. A third scenario is pin compatible replacement for end of life situations, when one of the vendors announces obsolescence for of his devices. In such case the longevity of the system is extended and secured, without going into risky and long redevelopment of the hardware and software." Value to customer While the traditional ASIC vendors are locked to specific manufacturer and technology. Avnet ASIC Israel has a different philosophy - we do not bound ourselves by technology or specific vendor. We are fabless and our focus is to maintain very strong network of Tier One Partners: IP and manufacturing, we are an authorized design center for most of them. Such approach enables us to build a unique solution, optimizing the specific targets of the customer. Our technical pre-sale team is experienced in understanding the unique needs of the markets we focus on, analyzing the tradeoff between technical solutions and cost, finding the right recipes for each customer – Silicon technology, IPs, Packaging. Whether it is low power for wearables, cost reduction for Consumer market or reliability for Automotive.
left to right: Pavel Vilk - Director of Engineering, Avnet ASIC; Frank Hansen - Regional Vice President Central & East Europe, Avnet Silica; Yulia Milshtein - Director of Operations and Business Development, Avnet ASIC; Yair Sahar - Technical Team Nanager, Avnet Israel
markets today require very small footprint, low power and low cost unique and secure systems, and the ASIC is the best choice for these applications. Automotive and ADAS car systems, Infotainment and Connected Car Wearables and Hand-Held devices IoT devices (sensors, metering, etc.) Consumer products (AR/VR, Drones, Gesture Recognition) Industrial Applications (Robots, Valve Control, Vision systems) Bio Medical (Attached to Body or Wrist, Implantable sensors and broadcasters) ". ASIC decision points I asked Pavel - What are typical conditions to start ASIC project? When should customer ask himself about ASIC? His answers were: "It’s hard to generalize, but I will provide some rules of thumb. If the application is industrial I would check ASIC ROI (Return on Investment) starting 20K/Year, in commercial around 200K/Year. There are some additional conditions - unlike the FPGA ASIC is not field programmable,
therefore customer should be able to freeze the design. Time to market is 1-1.5 years to mass production and initial NRE budget is required. With ASIC you will optimize your product unit price, power, area and BOM. Replace your FPGA as a cost reduction for mass production Replace your board by a single SoC (integrate CPU, DSP, Custom logic, Memories, MIPI, PCIe, USB, SerDes, RF front end, LDO, DC2DC, ADC/DAC, NFC and CAN PHY, High voltage cuircuits) Replace End of Life with a Pin Compatible solution". The synergy with Avnet Sil i ca Yulia: "ASIC is a high volume oriented product, in some cases customer that designed with Avnet based on FGPA or ASSP, will encounter price issue while ramping to high volume, or will need to optimized power or area that can’t be reached using FPGA. In this case, simple Return on Investment calculation can show that ASIC NRE investment will be returned in few years, and the saving in the long term will be huge. This enables Avnet
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