Production partnership

The chips will be manufactured on UMC’s 65nm low leakage process and will take advantage of the foundry’s 65nm eFlash technology. “Actel’s unique Flash based technology has been the company’s key differentiating factor, and the reason why we have been growing rapidly in the consumer, automotive, and industrial markets,” said Dr Esmat Hamdy, Actel’s senior vice president of technology and operations. “Our innovations are squarely focused on the real needs of today’s designers - lowering power, size, and cost. Partnering with UMC for our next generation Flash based fpgas allows us to provide even greater benefits to our customers.” Joe Ko, UMC’s vice president of speciality technology development, added: “Compared to earlier products built on the 0.13-micron process node, UMC’s 65nm eFlash technology will allow Actel’s fpgas to realise a 50% smaller cell size and a 3X speed gain to enable higher overall performance.”