DARPA plans to revolutionize ASIC design

31 August, 2015

With government funding of $30 million for three years, CRAFT program vision is to shorten the design cycle for custom integrated circuits by a factor of 10

With government funding of $30 million for three years, CRAFT program vision is to shorten the design cycle for custom integrated circuits by a factor of 10

ASIC

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) goes to the heart of the business of the rocketing costs of custom integrated circuits for specific tasks (ASIC). Now it is launch a new program that may re-shape the costs of ASIC semiconductors devices.

The new program is called CRAFT (Circuit Realization At Faster Timescales) and was budgeted with $30 million funding for three years. The agency explains that specialized integrated circuits for military electronics continues to surge exponentially, but the current design methods often result in devices that require more power than can be practically supplied on small flying platforms or on jet fighters.

“Engineers are stymied by the prospect of spending up to $100 million and working for more than two years to complete a design. As a result, Defense Department engineers often turn to more generic, inexpensive, and readily available general-purpose circuits, and then rely on software to make those circuits run the required specialized operations.” Although it can speed up design and implementation, but also burdens electronic systems with unnecessary power-gobbling circuitry.

“This dilemma has reduced the use of custom-integrated circuits and the performance of DoD systems,” said the director of CRAFT program, Linton Salmon. “The CRAFT program seeks to develop new fast-track circuit-design methods, multiple sources for integrated circuit fabrication, and a technology repository that will facilitate reuse of proven solutions.”

DARPA concept of "Distributes Air Operations". Coputation on board
DARPA concept of “Distributes Air Operations”. Coputation on board

He gave an example: Consider the Gotcha radar system that the Air Force Research Laboratory is developing to identify moving objects over city-scale areas and render detailed 3D images. “Gotcha currently requires a land-based supercomputer to make sense of the radar data and convert it into tactically useful imagery.

“However, relaying the data to a remote supercomputer across a contested data link can cause crippling delays. The CRAFT program could help put more of the necessary computational power on the UAV itself or on the backs of warfighters, enabling quicker delivery of the imagery to those who need it most.”

The idea is to reach ability to fabricate customized, technology-specific circuits using the 16 nanometer/14 nm commercial fabrication infrastructure that today produces generic commodity circuits. “A custom integrated circuit designed only to process images from an airborne radar or to analyze sensor data for warfighters on the ground doesn’t need to run a spread sheet or a word processor,” Salmon said. “Why carry around a heavy bulging Swiss Army knife when all you need is a single Phillips-head screwdriver?”

To achieve its goals, CRAFT seeks to shorten the design cycle for custom integrated circuits by a factor of 10 (on the order of months rather than years); devise design frameworks that can be readily recast when next-generation fabrication plants come on line; and create a repository so that methods, documentation and intellectual property need not be reinvented with each design and fabrication cycle.

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