VLSI unveils 'no-compromise' chip design for next-generation consumer digital products

Density first design approach expands customer choice, targets VLSI vertical markets

VLSI Technology, Inc., San Jose, last week unveiled a unique "no-compromise" semiconductor design that targets performance demands of today’s fast-growing communications, consumer digital entertainment and high-performance computing markets.

"By simultaneously introducing two new custom chip processes—the result of VLSI's radical rethink of deep submicron technology—customers, for the first time, can choose optimal chip operating voltages without compromising chip performance, power consumption, or density," said Rich Beyer, VLSI president and chief operating officer. "The new processes will result in longer battery life, speedier computing performance, and smaller footprints for end-products like cellular phones, television set-top boxes, and advanced computers and workstations."

Following "density-first" engineering principles, VLSI's new processes emphasize improving the connections among the millions of transistors embedded on a chip as the key to achieving breakthroughs in deep submicron-class chip density, performance, and low power consumption. The new processes can cost-effectively integrate up to 72 million logic transistors on a chip, roughly triple the number offered by VLSI's current process, announced just two years ago.

The VLSI VSC9 2.5-V process targets communications and digital entertainment applications featuring mixed analog/digital signal architectures. The 1.8-V VSC10 delivers high performance for high-gate count computing applications at lower power consumption levels than the VSC9 process.

VLSI's new process technologies can translate into significant improvements in products made by VLSI customers, like Ericsson wireless phones, Silicon Graphics supercomputers, and Sony digital video products. As a result of VLSI's insight, consumers will gain greatly improved battery life for cellular telephones, higher resolution 3-D computing, and more efficient set-top boxes with reduced purchase costs and expanded functionality.

"Our new approach to semiconductor design tackles the major problem vexing chip makers today—increased market demands for density by shrinking transistor size yields diminished performance returns. VLSI's density-first approach to chip design will make our customers’ products winners in the consumer marketplace," said Beyer. "The performance and power conservation achieved through our new processes will enable faster mass market acceptance of new generations of consumer products, from digital TVs and radios to multifunction digital cellular telephones."

The development of VLSI's process technology benefits from joint technology collaboration between VLSI and Hitachi, Ltd. The two companies have engaged in a wide-ranging technical partnership over the last nine years, with the partners applying joint technology to meet the needs of their respective customer bases.

Market focus

VLSI's rollout plans call for production of these processes in the fourth quarter of this year and the first quarter of 1998. VLSI's San Antonio, Texas, production facility is being upgraded to meet the varied needs of its top three vertical markets:

Communications—Battery-powered products like digital cellular phones and mobile data devices generally emphasize low power consumption and small physical size. The VSC9 process combines low power consumption and mixed signal capabilities ideally suited to battery powered cell-phones, digital communicators, GPS and other products.

Digital Entertainment—Set-top boxes, cable modems, satellite TV receivers and digital versatile disk will favor the VSC9 process optimized for high-circuit density and performance to reduce product costs and enable digital and analog signal processing on the same chip economically.

High-end computing—Workstations and supercomputers for 3D representation will use the VSC10 process delivering low power consumption while maintaining the highest possible system performance.

Analyst plaudits

The new VLSI processes have already attracted positive evaluations from the technology market analyst community. "VLSI Technology's newest silicon offering, 0.25 and 0.20 micron [drawn gate lengths], sets a good foundation for its expansion into consumer and communications environments," said Bryan Lewis, director/principal analyst of Dataquest.

According to Dan Hutcheson, president of industry analyst firm VLSI Research, "I'm very impressed with what VLSI Technology has done. The photos I've seen of their process clearly show that they have emerged as a new leader in high-quality, deep-submicron semiconductor manufacturing. And the fact that they're offering two processes optimized for two different operating voltages says that they've thoroughly thought through the problem of giving designers the best solutions to their problems. This definitely puts 'technology' back into the company's name."

Customer design benefits

The VLSI density-first design approach enables electronic designers to cost effectively use an unprecedented number of transistors to incorporate the functions of several chips onto a single piece of silicon. For example, a single multimedia system level silicon device can combine a microprocessor with additional circuitry for graphics, networking, data decompression, secure communications, and signal processing. Integrating all intelligent functions on as few chips as possible cuts product costs and reduces end product size and weight.

At transistor sizes below 0.5-micron, the connections between transistors plays a more important role in device performance than the size of the transistors, according to recent research in semiconductor physics. Traditionally, engineers have tried to shrink the size of transistors with each process generation, but have achieved steadily diminishing gains in circuit density, performance, and power consumption benefits.

VLSI will add to the advantages of its density-optimized processes through release of new high-density initiative circuit libraries to enable product developers to ready new designs as VLSI VSC9 and VSC10 fab lines go into production. The HDI libraries are tuned to the characteristics of these processes, and yield significantly more efficient use of silicon and higher performance than generic, process-independent libraries.

About VLSI Technology, Inc.

VLSI Technology, Inc., designs and manufactures system-level silicon integrated circuits based on its FSB functional system blocks library. Targeting its offerings toward the communications, consumer digital entertainment and computing markets, the company offers its customers advanced system-level integration capabilities. The company had 1996 revenues of $717 million, and has approximately 3,000 employees worldwide. Visit VLSI's homepage at http://www.vlsi.com.

© 1997 Silicon Valley Today, Jon Kennedymmm