Keeping Ahead of the Curve with Custom ASICs
mentioned previously, the sensors can run
off battery power and therefore power
budgets available for processing circuitry can
be demanding. Implementing a solution with
discrete components while meeting
demanding power budgets can be difficult.
have opened up for lower-volume products.
This means that custom ASICs are now
possible for many companies who would
previously have found such designs out of
their budgets.
Even what seems like a moderately simple
printed circuit board can contain hundreds
of components. Add to this the overhead
associated with specifying, purchasing and
testing, the time and cost can be
considerable in choosing to go the discrete
component path. And this is all before you
consider risks of obsolescence and security
of your intellectual property.
C USTOM S OLUTIONS E NABLING THE
E DGE
The arrival of the Industrial Internet of
Things has placed many demands on
technology. We need to be able to monitor
the data from large numbers of sensors
which can be in space-constrained locations,
working on battery power and with
communications latency issues. Ideally, the
sensors used would produce an electric
signal that is directly proportional to the
physical quantity that is being measured and
therefore would allow a linear transfer
function. However, this is not the case and
the ideal sensor does not exist 12 . Therefore,
we need to be able to monitor the sensor
with better-than-ever accuracy, allow for
these inherent non-idealities of sensors,
react to the information received, and
perform key functions based off that
information. And then we need to be able to
quickly store the data required in the cloud
to be accessed whenever it is needed.
With a custom ASIC, you can integrate all
your analog and digital circuitry onto one
single piece of silicon. Added to that you can
include a microprocessor or microcontroller,
memory (Flash and SRAM), various
interfaces and wired or wireless
communication protocols.
Integration can give major surface area size
savings – for example, a custom off-the-shelf
12-bit Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC)
discrete component may have a physical
area of 10mm 2 . The same DAC with
equivalent performance integrated into a
custom chip occupies just 0.1mm 2 . Later in
this article we will share case studies that
show how customers have achieved 80-90%
area savings on their systems by using
custom silicon versus discrete component
solutions.
Integration
Custom silicon was historically considered
the luxury of high-volume shipments.
However, since advanced semiconductor
nodes track consumer high-volume
segments, the more mature process nodes
12
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March 2019