Customer Specific ICs - Architecture Platforms

Atmel offers a range of ARM®- or AVR®-based architecture platforms as the starting point for a microcontroller-based ASIC. Based on a highly parallel bus structure for maximum internal data throughput, these platforms include on-chip Flash, EEPROM, RAM and ROM, an extensive set of peripherals, and industry-standard interfaces such as USB, Ethernet, CAN, etc. They transform the ASIC design flow into one of integration of qualified hardware blocks, with parallel integration of software drivers. This significantly reduces design time and cost, and keeps expensive prototype re-spins to a minimum.

Atmel's CAP™ customizable microcontroller carries this idea one step further by providing the architecture platform as the fixed portion of an ASIC die, together with a metal-programmable block for application-specific logic. This significantly reduces design time and NRE cost while providing an application-specific microcontroller at a unit cost close to that of a standard-cell ASIC.

SiliconCity™ Flexible Architecture
Atmel's newest ASIC architecture is the SiliconCity™ Flexible Architecture. It is a new technology for 90nm Silic­onCity™ ASIC development and provides up to 350K gates/mm2, offering customers the same gate den­sity as a standard cell ASIC. SiliconCity Flexible Architecture allows designers to place multiple product variations on one wafer, generously reducing customer design time, low­ering the NRE and reducing risk through design reuse.

ASIC development based on SiliconCity Flexible Architecture allows for lower mask fees and faster time to market. The architecture relies on the breadth of Atmel's standard microcontroller solutions, including the reusability and proven IP that Atmel offers through it's AVR® and AT91SAM standard products. SiliconCity Flexible Architecture also offers a migration path from standard microcontrollers to an ASIC design.

• Features & Benefits
• Customer-Defined Platform Offers Easy Design and Derivatives
• Low NRE Costs
• Quick Time-to-Market
• 90nm
• Atmel's Proven Processor Cores (AVR & ARM)

• Technical Specs
• 90 nm MPCF offers flexible metal programmabil­ity with the density of standard cell with over 350Kgates/mm2
• ARM7, ARM9 and ARM11 based platforms offer seamless migration from ARM based standard product designs
• Design Services for full Turnkey to COT net list hand off in as little as 12 weeks for samples. NRE Mask charges for 90 nm less than $300K
• Embedded 1T Cell RAM: 1Mbit in less than 1mm2
• High performance analog and mixed signal design capability (e.g. 12 bit A/D and DACs)