IIC Journal of Innovation 10th Edition | Page 45

Keeping Ahead of the Curve with Custom ASICs economically possible previously when using discrete components. Central to the design discussions were the sensing and measurement needs, the control, programmability, and connectivity needs and finally the security needs for the final solution. A solution using TSMCs 0.18um CMOS process was delivered featuring:       Examination of the results also show that this customer broke even on the ASIC investment after shipping over 42k units and will have estimated cost savings of over $21m over the accumulated cost of the lifetime of the project. Analog front end (AFE) comprising 14-bit SAR Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC), 12-bit control DAC, power switches, analog multiplexers and operational amplifiers Multiple industrial communications interfaces including FOUNDATION Fieldbus and Highway Addressable Remote Transducer (HART) Arm Cortex-M4 CPU core PIC microcontroller Flash and SRAM memories Multiple peripheral interfaces 2 including SPI, UART, I C and Parallel Discrete Solution ASIC Solution Figure 5: Comparison of ASIC solution vs Discrete Solution total savings including breakeven volume Machine-to-Machine In another case study, a company was developing Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology in the area of mobile satellite services. They were at a run rate of 100k units per year. This is a very niche area of wireless communications, providing two- way voice and data communications for mobile assets in remote locations. Reducing the system size and being able to guarantee signal quality and enhanced connectivity while keeping costs low are key concerns. While the company had already moved from a fully discrete solution by using an Application Specific Standard Product (ASSP) on their board, the product was still too generic for their requirements, and was therefore not optimized for the performance The resulting solution which contained all the above functionality achieved the following results for the end customer: Results Bill of materials cost reduction of 85% Substantial reduction in the physical footprint with a custom ASIC in a 19mm x 19mm package Power efficiency, meeting the low-power budget supplied from the 4-20mA control loop Design for portfolio tiering Investment breakeven 42k units - 41 - March 2019