Photograph Caption
(L to R) Frank Macmillan, ChipX, Alvin Tucker, UR, Andrew Barber,
ChipX, Joe Matano and Simon Rose, UR.

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ChipX signs Ultimate Renaissance following strong market response to structured ASIC family

Structured ASIC manufacturer ChipX has appointed Ultimate Renaissance (UR) as its representative in the UK and Ireland. The agreement will provide ChipX, formerly known as Chip Express, with additional resources to address the burgeoning market between standard cell application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs).

The two companies address similar markets and already have customers in common. Target application areas will include: fixed and mobile telecommunications; broadcast; medical; and industrial automation.
Offering a combination of up-front costs that are a small fraction of those associated with full custom ASICs, and greater performance and lower unit prices than comparable FPGAs, the newly-emerging structured ASICs have found wide market acceptance.

According to Andrew Barber, ChipX director of European sales: “The combination of low NREs and low unit prices has given many companies the opportunity to exploit the power of ASICs for the first time and ChipX has had a phenomenal response to its offering. The appointment of Ultimate Renaissance gives us a very strong resource to address the market demands for our structured ASIC technology. UR was able to demonstrate a good understanding of our technology and has an excellent presence in our target markets.”

Joe Matano, UR managing director, added: “There is a synergy between UR and ChipX that will enable our customers to get their products to market more quickly using structured ASICs. And, if the volumes ultimately warrant it, there is a roadmap to migrate designs to standard cell at a later date.”