Matsushita is planning to make extensive use of technology from Elixent, the Bristol-based start-up which it acquired last summer.
“We’ll be using it for AV [audio/visual] coding and processing in consumer products,” Andy Elms, director of the Panasonic Strategic Development Centre Europe, told
EW.
The reason why Elixent’s reconfigurable technology will be used in so many products is because Matsushita, via its Panasonic brand name, has an integrated platform strategy which allows a basic chip design to be adapted for use across a wide range of products.
Panasonic calls its platform UniPhier. The idea is to produce a basic chip which can be adopted for phones, auto AV, personal AV, home AV and home security.
“New algorithms are being developed every three months, new products are being launched every six months, and chips are turned around over an even longer cycle,” said Elms. “The reason why Panasonic wanted re-configurability, is because of its ability to change the functionality after the chip is set in silicon.”
By putting re-configurability into platform chips, Panasonic can make sure that the chip incorporates all the latest standards when it is put into an end product.
Asked if Panasonic would be adding to the design centre team which is based on the Elixent acquisition, Elms replied: “In terms of headcount, Elixent was sold on the basis that the current team can deliver the next generation of D-Fabrix [Elixent’s technology] for 65nm and 45nm processes. That should be delivered in the next two years. The Bristol design centre has to show it can deliver on that expectation. In Bristol we have to show we can deliver value in an expensive part of the world. That means we have to deliver on our belief that we can do novel stuff.”