Information on Startups

Compiled by John Lazzaro


Silicon Blue

The Silicon Blue product line is one part family (iCE65) on a 65nm process, with two variants -- a lowest-power variant (-L) and a performance variant (-P). The main product web pages:

http://www.siliconbluetech.com/products/devices/iCE65LSeries.aspx
http://www.siliconbluetech.com/products/devices/iCE65PSeries.aspx

do a good job of explaining each product line.

Datasheets are also linked at the top right of each page. For a company perspective:

Funding articles:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4079661/FPGA-startup-SiliconBlue-gains-funding
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4199981/FPGA-startup-SiliconBlue-snares-15M-in-funding

Design wins:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/programmable-logic-designline-blog/4033355/SiliconBlue-claims-100-design-wins

Product Announcements:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-products/fpga-pld-products/4104687/Hot-new-FPGA-company-announces-cool-ultra-low-power-FPGA
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-products/fpga-pld-products/4110349/SiliconBlue-announces-volume-production-shipments-of-iCE65-ultra-low-power-FPGAs
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-products/fpga-pld-products/4114992/SiliconBlue-unveils-new-series-of-FPGAs-targeting-mobile-apps

Analysis:

http://www.eetimes.com/design/programmable-logic/4015176/New-FPGA-meets-handheld-price-power-and-space-requirements

Tabula

Microprocessor Reports did an indepth study, which is probably the most technical introductory paper out there. The reprint can be downloaded here:

http://www.tabula.com/news/M11_Tabula_Reprint.pdf

There's no full data sheet on the company's web page, however there is a product brochure:

http://www.tabula.com/products/Abax_ProductBrochure.pdf

There is a link for registration to get "more information", if you want to go that route and see what happens:

https://www.tabula.com/support/login.php

As far as trade press on the company, most has been of the cynical/skeptical variety. Here's the best article that tried to keep an even-handed approach:

http://electronicdesign.com/article/digital/fpgas_enter_the_third_dimension.aspx

The rest are cynical/skeptical, and also much more entertaining. Here is a selection of those:

http://blog.shrinkingviolence.com/2010/03/Tabula-FPGA-architecture-launch.html
http://blogs.epfl.ch/article/27787
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/other/4205000/Musings-about-Tabula-and-other-FPGA-startups
http://low-powerdesign.com/sleibson/2010/04/01/tabula-fpga-scatters-logic-memory-and-power-across-space-and-time/

Tier Logic

Their website has vanished. The company came out of stealth mode in March, and the best articles about them in that time frame were:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4088048/FPGA-startup-Process-tech-eases-ASIC-migration
http://www.fpgagurus.edn.com/blog/fpga-gurus-blog/tier-logics-threefold-path

The next set of press was the obituaries:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4204843/FPGA-startup-Tier-Logic-folds

On a related note, an article that covers rumors of Xilinx and Altera using 3-D for FPGAs is available here:

http://chipdesignmag.com/lpd/blog/2010/06/10/special-report-using-fpgas-for-3d-stacking/

Announcement from Xilinx along these lines:

EE TImes, Xilinx multi-FPGA.

Ambric:

Funding notice:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-products/fpga-pld-products/4072038/New-Fabless-Semiconductor-Company-Ambric-Inc-

Microprocessor Reports analysis of product:

http://www.ambric.info/pdf/MPR_Ambric_Article_10-06_204101.pdf

Product Flier from the company:

http://www.ambric.info/Documentation/Documentation/MPPAs/TechnologyOverview_110508.pdf

EE Times article on the company's products:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-products/fpga-pld-products/4088401/Ambric-announces-world-s-first-TeraOPS-class-programmable-chip

Obituaries and Post-Mortems:

http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4183286/Another-programmable-logic-vendor-goes-under-
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/programmable-logic-designline-blog/4033002/First-MathStar-now-Ambric---WHAT-NEXT-
http://www.eetimes.com/design/signal-processing-dsp/4017733/Analysis-Why-massively-parallel-chip-vendors-failed