ASICs Provide For NRE-Less Conversion From Altera FPGAs

Three ASICs are available for conversion of designs from Altera FLEX 8000 FPGAs. The laser-configured devices are the 8000-gate CL8820A, the 12,000-gate CL81188A, and the 2500-gate CL8282A. All three accept designs directly from FLEX 8000 bitstreams with absolutely no re-design, re-synthesis, NRE charges or customer-side test vector generation. Prototypes are available within two weeks; production quantities take four weeks.The CL8000 LASIC family of devices differ from conventional ASICs in that they are architected specifically to accept FLEX 8000 designs. Unlike gate arrays, the devices have coarse-grained logic elements that support the high-level logic implemented in the Altera FPGAs. Each logic element has a four-input lookup table and the logic elements are arranged in Logic Building Blocks that maintain the routing, functionality, relative timing and pinout of the original FLEX 8000 design. Because the CL8000 architecture supports the same high-level logic as a FLEX 8000 device, the ASIC conversion can be accomplished directly from the FPGA bitstream. There's no need to revert to a VHDL or Verilog description to re-simulate or re-synthesize the design. The company automatically converts each customer bitstream to laser configuration instructions and also generates test vectors with 100% fault coverage at the factory in about an hour.All three devices are available immediately in all Altera FLEX 8000 production packages and speed selections.