"What if you could start a semiconductor company with $100,000 again?" The question was asked by James Foster, CEO of programmable chip company XMOS Semiconductor, at last week's IET/GSA International Semiconductor Forum in London
"XMOS is focussed on developing the fastest way to design an electronics product", Foster told an audience at last week's "our chip enables a new business category, the fabless, chipless start-up."
XMOS' Software Defined Silicon (SDS) ICs allow designers to programme multi-core architecture silicon in C. The chips cost between $1 and $10.
The cost of semiconductor start-ups has soared because it is linked to the high cost of spinning an ASIC. "Our NREs are less than $100,000 and our prototype lead-time is 30 seconds", says Foster.
So, the return of the $100,000 semiconductor start-up is at hand. Anyone with a brilliant idea for a chip, who can programme in C, who can get their hands on an XMOS development kit and an XMOS SDS chip, can bring an IC to market.
The XMOS concept removes a barrier which everyone complains about: complexity. A 100 per cent programmable silicon fabric could be the catalyst to return innovation to the chip industry.
XMOS' Software Defined Silicon (SDS) ICs allow designers to programme multi-core architecture silicon in C. The chips cost between $1 and $10.
The cost of semiconductor start-ups has soared because it is linked to the high cost of spinning an ASIC. "Our NREs are less than $100,000 and our prototype lead-time is 30 seconds", says Foster.
So, the return of the $100,000 semiconductor start-up is at hand. Anyone with a brilliant idea for a chip, who can programme in C, who can get their hands on an XMOS development kit and an XMOS SDS chip, can bring an IC to market.
The XMOS concept removes a barrier which everyone complains about: complexity. A 100 per cent programmable silicon fabric could be the catalyst to return innovation to the chip industry.
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