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Samsung Electronics and Xilinx Announce Full Production Qualification for Xilinx’s Spartan-6 FPGA Family on 45nm Low-Power Process Technology

SEOUL, Korea and San Jose, CA, February, 19, 2010 – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in advanced semiconductor technology and Xilinx Inc. (NASDAQ:XLNX), the world’s leading provider of programmable platforms, announced today that Xilinx’s Spartan®-6 FPGA family has attained full production qualification on 45-nanometer (nm) process of Samsung Electronics’ Foundry business (Samsung Foundry). This advanced process node, coupled with state of the art FPGA design, produces an optimal balance of cost efficiency, low power, and high performance, enabling the Spartan-6 family of FPGAs to address a wide variety of applications in cost sensitive markets. Today’s announcement marks the immediate availability of qualified production shipments from Xilinx manufactured at Samsung Foundry.

“This collaborative effort combines Xilinx’s leadership in programmable logic solutions with Samsung’s world class process technology, manufacturing, and foundry services to create greater value for the market,” said Jay Min, vice president, Samsung Electronics’ Foundry business. “We are pleased that Xilinx-Samsung relationship is off to a strong start, and looking forward to a successful long-term partnership,” he added.

“Strong collaboration between the engineering teams in Samsung Foundry and Xilinx in conjunction with our diligent New Product Introduction methodology has enabled us to simultaneously attain successful production qualification and a flawless manufacturing ramp,” said Vincent Tong, Xilinx Senior Vice President, New Product and Worldwide Quality. “Samsung Foundry’s manufacturing process coupled with Xilinx innovations in advanced power management technology enabled the new Spartan-6 FPGA family to achieve 65 percent lower power than previous Spartan families.”

The sixth generation in the Spartan FPGA Series, the Spartan-6 family is fabricated on a proven, low-power (LP) 45nm, dual-oxide process technology. In the fast-growing 45nm low power arena, complicated designs dictated the need for a close engineering partnership between Xilinx and Samsung Foundry engineering teams. By taking advantage of Samsung Foundry’s 45nm LP process technology, Xilinx was able to develop more energy-efficient chips through a two-fold improvement in transistor density for a smaller chip size. This results in the ability of Xilinx to deliver compelling higher-performance, lower- power FPGA solutions to their customers. The production devices are supported in version 11.5 of the Xilinx ISE® Design Suite.

Samsung Foundry’s 45nm LP process node is in high volume manufacturing utilizing the most advanced immersion lithography and model based optical proximity correction (OPC) coupled with best-in-class design for manufacturing (DFM). Samsung Foundry worked closely with Xilinx, leveraging these advanced techniques to achieve robust designs and higher product yields. Samsung Foundry’s production of Xilinx 45nm products is starting now and will support the growing demand for Xilinx’s FPGA solutions.

About Samsung Electronics’ Foundry Business

Samsung Electronics’ Foundry business is dedicated to support fabless and IDM semiconductor companies offering full service solutions encompassing design kits and proven IP to fully turnkey manufacturing to achieve market success with advanced IC designs. Currently in mass production at 45 nanometer (nm), Samsung Foundry is also preparing next generation 32/28nm and beyond process technologies by leveraging the deep expertise in advanced process technologies, design technologies, as well as a long, proven track record in high-volume manufacturing with its continued participation in the IBM Joint Development Alliance (JDA). For more information, please visit www.samsung.com/Foundry.

About Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2008 consolidated sales of US$96 billion. Employing approximately 164,600 people in 179 offices across 61 countries, the company consists of seven independently operated business units: Visual Display, Mobile Communications, Telecommunication Systems, Digital Appliances, IT Solutions, Semiconductor and LCD. Recognized as one of the fastest growing global brands, Samsung Electronics is a leading producer of digital TVs, memory chips, mobile phones and TFT-LCDs. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.

About Xilinx

Xilinx is the worldwide leader in complete programmable logic solutions. For more information, visit www.xilinx.com.

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NEC Electronics Expands Lineup with 78 new 32-bit Microcontrollers with Industry-Leading Low Power Consumption and Dramatically Reduced Package Size

KAWASAKI, Japan, DUESSELDORF, Germany, February 19, 2010– NEC Electronics today announced 78 new 32-bit All Flash? V850ES/Jx3 series microcontrollers (MCUs) with industry’s leading low power consumption, optimized pin counts and expanded functionality. The new MCUs are ideal for compact, battery-driven systems such as polyphase electricity meters and handheld terminals, connected devices such as USB2.0 PC peripherals and healthcare equipment, as well as industrial Ethernet systems.  This new lineup provides a complete platform approach for system designers, allowing them to choose the optimum configuration from a single family for their complete range of applications. In addition, by sharing the same architecture, the new MCUs enable easy migration of software and hardware for the system designers, contributing to faster time-to market for system designers at low cost. 

The new MCUs offer the following features:

1. High performance with industry-leading low-power consumption

Operating at 20 MHz, the new V850ES/Jx3-L MCUs require only 0.9 milliwatts per million instructions per second (mW/MIPS, Note), offering approximately 60 percent reduction over the company’s existing MCUs that require 1.7 mW/MIPS. The V850ES/Jx3-L MCUs offer a wealth of features that include up to 512 kilobytes (KB) of flash memory and optional on-chip USB 2.0 controllers, and still they consume only about 0.7 µA during standby mode (when real-time counter is operating). Featuring the industry’s leading low power consumption, the new MCUs realize longer life for battery-driven systems. This new low power MCU lineup also offers RTC with independent power supply pins as well as increased number of serial interfaces. 

2. Smaller and thinner package

In addition to the standard QFP (Quad Flat Package) packages, the 40-pin MCUs are equipped with 6 mm x6 mm x 0.75 mm QFN package and the 48-pin MCUs are equipped in 7 mm x 7mm x 0.75 mm QFN packages. By employing QFN packages, NEC Electronics succeeded in reducing the number of external pins by 50 percent and the package thickness by 46 percent, thereby achieving an 82 percent smaller package size compared to the company’s existing MCUs. For even smaller and thinner applications, a lineup of BGA (Ball Grid Array) packages is available. The body sizes of these BGA packages range from 5mmx5mm or 6mm x 6mm for packages with 64-pins to 8mm x 8mm for packages with 113-pins, which reduce space requirements and enable system designers to develop compact systems. 

3. Extensive lineup in a single architecture

With the addition of the new chips, the V850ES/Jx3 series now includes 117 MCUs with flash memory ranging from 16 KB to 1 megabyte, packages from 40 to 144 pins and also includes USB2.0 Host & Function in the V850ES/Jx3-H and V850ES/Jx3-U series, and embedded Ethernet MAC in the V850ES/Jx3-E series. NEC Electronics’ whole V850 series now covers the entire range in operating frequencies from 20 MHz to 200 MHz, with all of the new MCUs sharing the same architecture and yet offering new functions and circuit optimizations. This makes it easier for the system designers to leverage their existing software resources as they add new products, thereby facilitating the overall development process at low-cost. 

Combined with highly reliable flash security functions and unrivalled quality, NEC Electronics believes that this new lineup of MCUs will provide its customers a more competitive edge in battery driven products and connected electronics. The company remains committed to further expansion of its lineup of power-efficient 32-bit MCUs. 

See appendix for additional specifications of the new products. 

Availability

Mass production of these new products is scheduled to begin in June 2010 and is expected to reach a monthly production of 5,000,000 units by 2011. More information about NEC Electronics’ extensive MCU product offerings can be found at http://www.eu.necel.com/v850

About NEC Electronics Corporation

NEC Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723) specializes in semiconductor products encompassing advanced technology solutions for the high-end computing and broadband networking markets; system solutions for the mobile handset, PC peripheral, automotive and digital consumer markets; and multi-market solutions for a wide range of customer applications. NEC Electronics Corporation has subsidiaries worldwide including NEC Electronics America, Inc. (www.am.necel.com) and NEC Electronics (Europe) GmbH (www.eu.necel.com). More information about NEC Electronics worldwide can be found at www.necel.com. 

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