Trends in the ASIC

Marketplace
A Third Party View of Soft Errors

Source: Semico Research

“Gate Arrays Wane While Standard Cells Soar: ASIC Market Evolution Continues”
Report: SC103-02 June 2002
 Trends in the ASIC Marketplace
In a recent study, Semico Research identified 8
key trends in the ASIC Marketplace:
! Trend # 1: Product Life Cycles Shrinking, Increasing Design Times

! Trend # 2: The Quality of IP is Improving

! Trend # 3: Complex Analog / Mixed Signal IP Becoming Available

! Trend # 4: Rapid Growth of Non-Recurring Engineering Charges

! Trend # 5: Increased Co-Dependency of Design Efforts

! Trend # 6: Silicon Foundries Implement SoC Initiatives

! Trend # 7: The SoC Market is Growing

! Trend # 8: Soft Error Rates A Growing Concern

Soft Errors © 2002 Actel Confidential and Proprietary October 2002 2

 Trend #8 Soft Error Rates*

" “As the feature size of semiconductors continues to decrease

...they become more susceptible to hits from Alpha particles and
thus experience increased soft error rates”

" “This trend has not been that noticeable until the industry
reached the 0.13µm process node”

" “As speed increases and silicon area and voltage decrease the
performance continues to increase. Unfortunately, the System
SER is increasing right along with global performance”

" “Several companies such as IBM, MoSys and iRoC

Technologies are bringing the issue to the attention of
designers” * Source: Semico Research 6/02

Soft Errors © 2002 Actel Confidential and Proprietary October 2002 3

 System Soft Error Rate Trends
Soft Error Rate Trends in
Very Dense < 0.18µm
Very Dense & Ultra Dense
Semiconductor Memory Ultra Dense < 0.09µm
10000
System FITS (Non Linear Scale)

System SER

1000

100

10

1
0.25 um 0.18 um 0.13 um 0.09 um 0.05 um Source: Semico Research 6/02

Soft Errors © 2002 Actel Confidential and Proprietary October 2002 4

 SER Impact by Market Segment
S o ft E rr o r R a te F o r ec a st

10000
2008
N e tw o rk in g
C o m p u tin g
Normalized FIT Rate

T e le c om
1000
C r itica l A p p lic atio n s 2005
(S p a c e , A u to m o tiv e ,
S m a rt C a rd )

100 2001

2012
10

2003
W ir eless
1999 P C P er ip h er a ls
1 .0 PC
1997
S oft E rr o r R a te E x tr a cted fr o m
A M D , In tel, C om p a q
0 .1 Source:
0 .3 5 u m 0 .3 0 u m 0 .2 5 u m 0 .2 0 u m 0 .1 5 u m 0 .1 0 u m 0 .0 5 u m
iRoC
Technologies
Semico Research
Corp June 2002

Soft Errors © 2002 Actel Confidential and Proprietary October 2002 5

 Soft Error Rate Summary

" Soft errors are a real problem today!

" SER problem getting worse with shrinks in geometry
"There is a growing awareness of this issue in the
mainstream commercial marketplace – this is not just a
“space market problem”
" The need to mitigate SER will affect designers in
virtually every market segment
" Actel products offer immunity to Configuration soft
errors because an SRAM element is not used to
program the device configuration

Soft Errors © 2002 Actel Confidential and Proprietary October 2002 6