Four reasons why we’re better.

1.     Faster time to market

2.     Higher density

3.     Higher performance

4.     Reduced development costs

Faster Time to Market

Development of a typical deep sub-micron SoC is a multi-year project, and require an investment of millions of dollars (if not tens of millions)—today's markets move much faster than that, and often don't support that level of investment. To complicate matters, requirements frequently change in the middle of a long design cycle, resulting in delays and additional expense.  

CrossFire technology targets the implementation of nominal designs based on currently-existing die and components in six months or less.

Higher Density

Engineering teams face the same challenges with each new design—achieve a miracle, on a tight deadline, with minimal budget:

·       Reduce the volume/weight of the package while maintaining the same performance/functionality

·       Increase the performance/functionality while maintaining the same volume/weight of the package

·       Or, (more typically), Increase the performance/functionality while reducing the volume/weight of the package

The difficulties in achieving these objectives relates to:

·       Use of packaged components—a typical BGA wire bond package increases the board area of a standard die by 10x-50x or more—and without accounting for the routing of input/output (I/O) traces for high pin count devices. While chip scale packages (CSPs) are sometimes an option, they are often impractical due to the number of I/Os on the die

·       Two dimensional limitations of standard module / PCB solutions

CrossFire's technology provides solutions to both of these issues. By employing CSPs and die whenever possible, integrating passive components, as well as utilizing 2.5D integration with stacking of integrated planar building blocks, the CrossFire process achieves maximum utilization of available volume. 

Higher Performance

The definition of higher performance is typically application specific. It may involve operating at a higher clock rate, lower power consumption, a lower noise figure, reduced component count, or integration of additional functionality. In many cases, it will be some combination of “all of the above.”

Whatever your project's definition of “higher performance,” CrossFire can help you realize it. 

Reduced Development Costs

Complex electronic systems’ life cycle costs can be divided into three categories:

·       Development costs

·       Validation costs

·       Production costs

CrossFire's technology mitigates each of these cost categories

·       Development costs: CrossFire's NRE expenses are typically a fraction of those for a full-fledged SoC development, and can be completed in far less time. With a customer starting from an existing design, CrossFire’s technology platform enables IP reuse, IP mix and match, as well as IP substitution on a block basis. For modules, several SKUs can be developed from a basic design by modifying resources.

·       Validation costs: CrossFire's technology enables the insertion of “debug” validation test points in the design, which can be removed from production tooling after debugging.

·       Production costs: CrossFire's technology increases yields on systems with high value components. Increasing the level of system integration results in simpler PCB boards; lower system power requirements that reduce power supply costs; and lower component count reduces system costs.