Structured ASIC Design for Space Systems Applications

As integrated circuit dimensions scale downward the costs of the photolithographic masks used to manufacture microcircuits are becoming prohibitively high. And in today’s highly competitive business environment, time to market is increasingly critical. Custom standard-cell ASICs are on the wrong side of these dynamics with their long lead times and the need to build a full mask set per part number. Structured ASICs offer an attractive alternative. Structured ASICs are developed from an inventoried base masterslice chip design by using generally only a few back-end masking levels to personalize the resulting ASIC function, saving mask costs and shortening lead times per circuit design. Structured ASICs strategically fill the trade space between FPGAs and custom ASICs. BAE Systems has developed a radiation hardened structured ASIC product offering for next-generation advanced military and space applications.