Green Data Cabinets Feature Editorial

Israel’s fabless semiconductor company KaiSemi claims that its automated FPGA-to-ASIC conversion flow is proven and uses a unique in-house tool, which performs an automated conversion directly from the original FPGA netlist into a functionally-identical ASIC gate-level netlist. As a result, the company provides a seamless full turnkey ASIC solution with zero NRE model.

According to KaiSemi, its automated conversion and flow eliminates the need for customer involvement and resources, NRE costs, long lead times, and the risks that are part of traditional FPGA-to-ASIC conversion flows.

From the purchase order through conversion, all the way through manufacturing and shipment of the ASIC chips, KaiSemi manages the whole FPGA-to-ASIC process for the customer. This seamless conversion process – combined with the zero NRE model – lets the customer order an ASIC chip as if it were an off-the-shelf second-source replacement chip with a relatively short lead-time, said the developer.

In a company statement, KaiSemi’s CEO Gal Gilat said, "KaiSemi is focused on automating the process of converting any FPGA into an ASIC replacement chip while achieving the best cost solution in terms of price, power, area optimization, and the most appropriate fab process."  He added, "Using a proven automated conversion tool with no RTL touch means we can offer a fully functional guarantee; we will provide a functionally-identical chip at a dramatically lower price within a significantly shorter lead time."

The company is backed by a tier-one fab vendor, and utilizes a database of multiple proven standard-cell fab process libraries. The wide range of libraries enables the conversion of any type and size of FPGA from any FPGA vendor to ASIC, said the fabless designer. This approach is accompanied by deep cost optimization during the automated conversion and allows the use of third party standard hard cores (such as DDR interface, PCIe Phy, etc). The resulting ASICs – which are pin-compatible, timing-compatible, and functionally identical to the original FPGAs – consume less power and cost up to 70 percent less than their FPGA counterparts, claims KaiSemi.KaiSemi's team members originate in Flextronics (News - Alert)-Semi's conversion division, where they specialized in VLSI, EDA and FPGA-to-ASIC gate array conversions. For more than 10 years, the team members performed over 500 successful conversions of FPGA/ASIC components, according to KaiSemi.

The company's conversions portfolio includes FPGA-to-ASIC, Multichip-to-ASIC, ASIC-to-ASIC, and DSP algorithm-to-ASIC.