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What does ASIC exactly mean?

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scorpionss22

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hi all i study electronical engineering
and i wanna know what is ASIC mean
and ist good form me
 

Re: what is ASIC

hi

asic : application specific ic

of rmore informations in this field u can read a book like :

Essential Electronic Design Automation (EDA)
By Mark D. Birnbaum

Publisher : Prentice Hall PTR
Pub Date : October 01, 2003
ISBN : 0-13-182829-0
 

what is ASIC

I think almost all ICs can called ASIC,
like Intel or AMD's cpu.

If you know how to design ASIC and familiar with tools, you will be easier to get a job.
 

Re: what is ASIC

ASIC is relativized to full custom IC. ASIC can be treated as a type of design methodology. Full custom IC design is start from cell desgin, and ASIC design is start from RTL description using pre-designed gate libraries.
 

Re: what is ASIC

asic1984 said:
hi

asic : application specific ic

of rmore informations in this field u can read a book like :

Essential Electronic Design Automation (EDA)
By Mark D. Birnbaum

Publisher : Prentice Hall PTR
Pub Date : October 01, 2003
ISBN : 0-13-182829-0

Then.... What's the different between AISC and SOC (system on a chip)?
Can I say if my chip include 51 and some IO control circuit, like USB... is a SOC?
Why some people say they are SOC designer, and some people say they are "only" a AISC designer?
What's the different?
Isn't it a trend that all ASIC designer going to do intergare IP (job like SOC)?
 

Re: what is ASIC

scorpionss22 said:
hi all i study electronical engineering
and i wanna know what is ASIC mean
and ist good form me

You can research in this site **broken link removed**

There are two books that I think you have to read

1. 'The Designer's Guide to VHDL', Peter Ashenden, ISBN: 1558602704
2. 'Application-Specific Integrated Circuits' Michael John Sebastian Smith,ISBN 0-201-50022-1 (Basic book)
Beside, you can search in eda forum to read ASIC primer.pdf. I think there are two way to learn ASIC design.
- Semi-ASIC : You can using VHDL to implement in FPGA, or CPLD to test. After that you must optimize your design by EDA tool and send you design to fabrication.
- Full-ASIC: You have to know detail about CMOS, logic level, analog or digital design. This way take more time but it can reach maximize performance.

This is my opinion, so I do not know it match your request or not.
Good luck.
 

Re: what is ASIC

ASIC is a general definition of IC field, and are different with general -purpose IC, such as CPU, DSP.
 

Re: what is ASIC

zyphor said:
ASIC is a general definition of IC field, and are different with general -purpose IC, such as CPU, DSP.

But more and more AISC add DSP or ARM inside, should we call that a ASIC or SOC or DSP?
 

Re: what is ASIC

SOC=ASIC+CPU+DSP+BUS....?
 

Re: what is ASIC

ASIC could be treated as any design that adheres to a specificly implemented function. CPUs or DSP chips on the other hand are used for general computation whereas the ASIC design is targeted to enhance a specific function's computation through dedicated hardware rather than general purpose hardware.

Having said this, there are many methodoliges that can be adopted to achieve ASIC design. Among the most frequently used methodologies are the custom ASIC and the Gate Array methods. The former involoves full custom or semi-custom IC design which includes layouts and schematics while the latter begins with HDL modelling of the hardware and later implemented on the CPLD or FPGA chip.
 

Re: what is ASIC

ASIC is a custom-designed chip that does any specific function.

For example, if a company X design a device, it can do it in an FPGA. However, there's some limitations to FPGA (speed, functions, ...). So, when a design is completed, that can build it into an ASIC.

The process of making ASIC is very costly. If you have a bug in an ASIC, you can't correct it. You have to design a new ASIC with the corrections, which imply more cost.

However, when done in large quantity, ASIC become cheaper than FPGA.

A design on an ASIC take much less space than on an FPGA (dye size). So, you can put much more stuff in an ASIC than an FPGA. If you would compare ASIC and FPGA to a software analogy, an FPGA would be an emulator, where an ASIC would be the real machine.

A SOC is a system on chip. Basically, it's a way of putting the processor, IO, timers, ... on a single chip. It's analog to a microcontroler, but can incorporate many more things, like Ethernet MAC, video processor, ...

A SOC can be implemented in an FPGA.

So, to come to the first question asked, ASIC is really intended for big company, having a lot of money, with the objective of selling soo much of those ASIC that eventually, the cost of the manufacturing of the ASIC will come lower than selling the same amount of units in FPGA. In other words, it's not good to design ASIC if you don't plan to sell at least 250 000 to 1 milion units.

FPGA on the other hand is the ideal choise for low volume, rapid prototyping, corrections, ... In an FPGA, if you have a design, you can verify immediately if it work. If you have corrections to do to the design, you can see the result in little time. With ASIC, it takes days/weeks just to design the first prototypes. If you have bugs, you're stuck with it until another few weeks (until a new ASIC respin). Also, since each ASIC respin cost money, you would like to wait, and live with the bugs a long time, to make sure you find the largest amount of bugs before re-spining the AISC. With FPGA, if you find a bug, you can easily find it, correct it, and test the corrections the very same day, for no additional cost.

Many companies do ship commerial boards with FPGA on it. Plus, the newer FPGA are becoming soo cheap that it often cheaper to design with them, even in large quantities. Plus, the speed of FPGA are getting much higher with the years.

I hope this answer some questions :)

Big Boy
 

Re: what is ASIC

Big Boy said:
ASIC is a custom-designed chip that does any specific function.

For example, if a company X design a device, it can do it in an FPGA. However, there's some limitations to FPGA (speed, functions, ...). So, when a design is completed, that can build it into an ASIC.

The process of making ASIC is very costly. If you have a bug in an ASIC, you can't correct it. You have to design a new ASIC with the corrections, which imply more cost.

However, when done in large quantity, ASIC become cheaper than FPGA.

A design on an ASIC take much less space than on an FPGA (dye size). So, you can put much more stuff in an ASIC than an FPGA. If you would compare ASIC and FPGA to a software analogy, an FPGA would be an emulator, where an ASIC would be the real machine.

A SOC is a system on chip. Basically, it's a way of putting the processor, IO, timers, ... on a single chip. It's analog to a microcontroler, but can incorporate many more things, like Ethernet MAC, video processor, ...

A SOC can be implemented in an FPGA.

So, to come to the first question asked, ASIC is really intended for big company, having a lot of money, with the objective of selling soo much of those ASIC that eventually, the cost of the manufacturing of the ASIC will come lower than selling the same amount of units in FPGA. In other words, it's not good to design ASIC if you don't plan to sell less than 250 000 to 1 milion units.

FPGA on the other hand is the ideal choise for low volume, rapid prototyping, corrections, ... In an FPGA, if you have a design, you can verify immediately if it work. If you have corrections to do to the design, you can see the result in little time. With ASIC, it takes days/weeks just to design the first prototypes. If you have bugs, you're stuck with it until another few weeks (until a new ASIC respin). Also, since each ASIC respin cost money, you would like to wait, and live with the bugs a long time, to make sure you find the largest amount of bugs before re-spining the AISC. With FPGA, if you find a bug, you can easily find it, correct it, and test the corrections the very same day, for no additional cost.

Many companies do ship commerial boards with FPGA on it. Plus, the newer FPGA are becoming soo cheap that it often cheaper to design with them, even in large quantities. Plus, the speed of FPGA are getting much higher with the years.

I hope this answer some questions :)

Big Boy

Yes, you said it.
 

Re: what is ASIC

ASIC is Aplication Specific Intergrate curcuit. That is IC but the function of it u can program, normally it is digital IC.
 

what is ASIC

I think that there are two main differentlity between ASIC and general IC.

ASIC is designed with optimize of resource and perfomance. Example, MP3 decoder chip is ASIC for decode MP3 file. In fact, DSP or mP also is used for decoding MP3 file but ASIC operates with high speed and peromance because we use hardware circuit to replace program intructions. DSP and mP or mC have many function so we have to write program with stricly principle.

ASIC do not have static structure.Structure of ASIC depends request of custome and the choice, ability, of designer. But DPS or mP only have two static structure Harvard or Von-Newman.

This is my opinion, so I do not know they are right or
uncorrect. Bye
 

what is ASIC

asic is application specific ic.
generaly befor making any ASIC you prototype your functionality on any FPGA and after you do it successfully you go for ASIC design... if and only if you can afford to spend huge amount for that. ( thats only you need it in a bulk). or else for experementing you can go on with FPGA.
 

Re: what is ASIC

ASIC is those IC for specific application, such as DVD decoder,

TV decoder etc.



scorpionss22 said:
hi all i study electronical engineering
and i wanna know what is ASIC mean
and ist good form me
 

what is ASIC

an ASIC is a part of SOC...
in SOC there can be ASIC but vice versa is not possible...
we can say ASIC is a subset of SOC
 

Re: what is ASIC

ASIC is an IC dedicated for particular purpose.
 

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