What is different about eASICs technology compared to other NEW ASICs and FPGAs?
A. Competing NEW ASICs require numerous custom masks since both routing and logic are mask-customized. The expense of custom masks is high and grows exponentially with each new process node. By efficiently using a maskless lithography customization, eASIC’s Nextreme devices provide unprecedented benefits of quick and low cost product development together with a seamless path to volume production. Nextreme prototypes are identical to the high volume production devices, as they both share the same base wafers and the same data files are used for the Via customization. The only difference is in the manufacturing process – prototypes and low volume quantities are customized with Direct-Write eBeam equipment and high volume production devices are customized with a single Via-mask. In an FPGA, both the routing and the logic are configurable. Configurable routing requires significant silicon overhead and in eASICs NEW ASIC the configurable routing is replaced with Via-mask routing. Therefore,
