Xilinx to use HKMG at 28nm

FPGA developer Xilinx is embarking on a radical change in philosophy as it sets itself up for 28nm production. Along with manufacture at TSMC and Samsung, the company is merging the Virtex and Spartan architectures at the 28nm node into an as yet unnamed new product family to be launched later this year. The devices, it adds, will form a new class of fpga, which it is calling 'ultra high end'. The 28nm parts will feature high K metal gate (HKMG) transistors. According to Chuck Tralka (pictured), senior director of silicon product planning: "It's a way of delivering lower power consumption with higher levels of integration, while meeting our performance targets." Tralka admitted that static power consumption has been increasing dramatically over the last few process generations and that HKMG was the solution. "It gives the best combination of performance and power consumption," he noted. But Xilinx is also implementing other features, including clock gating and partial reconfiguration, in order to keep power levels under control. Having made the decision to go with HKMG at the 28nm node, Tralka said Xilinx 'looked around to see who had the best technology'. That turned out to be TSMC and Samsung. "But we will continue to work with our previous foundry partners," he insisted. Tralka said that while the 28nm HKMG process being implemented is particular to Xilinx, it is based on a standard process. "We chose these two foundries because they were in front in terms of technical development. We have worked closely with TSMC to make sure that it will meet our particular needs. We have made good progress and feel comfortable that TSMC can deliver. We have done as much as we can to reduce risk and to make the new devices manufacturable."