Keeping Ahead of the Curve with Custom ASICs
C ASE S TUDIES
Industrial
An industrial company in the oil and gas
market developed their existing solution
using commercial off-the-shelf discrete
components. They were shipping in the
region of 60k units per year. The cost of the
solution was extreme and did not offer the
flexibility the company needed if they were
to be able to offer their end customer the
advantages they desired – namely
maximizing production while minimizing
operating costs and being compatible with
linear and rotary valves and actuators. High
reliability was also a key requirement due to
potential hostile working environment of the
product. The company determined that they
could benefit from a custom solution with:
Figure 4: Visual representation of benefits of custom
integration
Bill of Material Cost Reduction
Custom silicon not only leads to large savings
in area, but also significant savings on your
bill of material (BOM) costs. In particular, for
the Industrial Internet of Things where the
lifetime of products can be 10 years or more,
the return on investment using custom
silicon can be considerable. Also, with
integration, you are moving from having all
the costs associated with sourcing, storing
and physical placement of large numbers of
components, down to one custom chip
which has incorporated all this functionality.
Protecting Intellectual Property
It is relatively trivial for a competitor to
reverse-engineer a circuit board consisting
of off-the-shelf semiconductor components.
However, it is exceptionally difficult, if not
inconclusive to reverse engineer an
integrated circuit. Integration can protect
the hard-earned intellectual property from
been copied.
IIC Journal of Innovation
The ability to allow for portfolio
tiering and expansion
Multiple sensor interfaces (pressure,
temperature, diagnostics)
Integrated smart control loop
Accurate value positioning
Multiple communications protocols
Integrated Arm processor and PIC
controller
Intrinsically safe by design
Power efficient
As well as meeting the needs of their end
customer, of being able to maximize
production while minimizing operating costs
and being compatible with different valves
and actuators, this major supplier of
equipment for the oil and gas market
wanted to incorporate product tiering into
the ASIC, something that was not
- 40 -