Global Unichip expands interconnect IP

Global Unichip, TSMC’s design arm, has rolled out an expanded interconnect low power IP portfolio for ASICs targeting solid state drive (SSD) applications. The expansion covers ultra low power PCIe 3/4 PHY, DDR3/4, LPDDR3/4 CTRL/PHY and ONFi4.0 IO/PHY.

IP based on the 28HPM/HPC processes in the expanded portfolio are available now, while 16nm macros will be available in Q4 of this year. The first tape out targeting TSMC’S 16FF+ process is expected in October.

The company’s 16nm DDR4 PHY, taped out in November 2013, was the industry’s first.

The company is now expecting to tape out the industry’s first Application Processor platform IP to TSMC’s 16FF+ process at the start of 2015.

Among all NAND applications, SSD is the fastest growing with the Data Center and Enterprise segments showing the greatest potential. GUC addresses that with a complete low power IP portfolio for SSD controllers, including NAND I/O (ONFI, Toggle), DDR I/F (DDR3/4, LPDDR3/4) and Serdes I/F (PCIe-3/4, SATA3/SAS3).

“We have both a low power IP portfolio and an advanced technology roadmap to drive ASIC development for SSD markets to the next level of innovation,” says C. J. Liang, SVP of R&D at GUC.

GUC’s in-house IP portfolio includes DDR, high-speed networking interfaces, high -speed interface SerDes, data converters, hardened ARM cores, and multimedia IP. GUC’s IP ecosystem provides the flexibility to work with IP from GUC, TSMC and other vendors, creating the widest range of design options.

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via Yuichun