Anadigm to develop second FPAA family

Anadigm to develop second FPAA family
By Crista Souza, EBN
March 8, 2001 (2:47 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010308S0066

Silicon Valley

With new financing of $14.5 million in its pocket, Anadigm Inc. is setting out to prove its reprogrammable analog arrays are a credible alternative to using multiple discrete analog ICs.

The fledgling chip supplier plans to use the additional funds to develop its second FPAA family-a more robust version of the first-and establish alliances with leading real-time operating system vendors to create a "unified software environment and the ability to work with these programmable systems in real time," said Mike Kay, president and chief executive of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company.

Additionally, Anadigm hopes to double its employee base to 47 by the end of the year. Growth will mainly be at its silicon development center in Cheshire, England, and its software operation in Chandler, Ariz. Sales and application support will also be expanded in Cupertino; Munich, Germany; and locations in Southeast Asia, according to Kay.

While Anadigm developed its first products to simplify analog integration challenges confronting digital designers, its second-generation devices will be optimized for performance, price, and with an eye toward applications "more tightly coupled with the microprocessor world," Kay said.

For every dollar spent on microprocessors, another $1.50 is required to create an interface to the rest of the system. Designing this interface typically requires many individual analog components, and their configuration is a highly skilled process.

Anadigm's technology uses software that lets engineers "drag and drop" analog function blocks into place and download configuration data to the FPAA.

This approach addresses a significant share of analog applications in a market worth an estimated $23 billion annually, according to Anadigm.

Design-in activity for the company's technology has been encouraging. Anadigm is delivering initial products to its distributors: Future Electronics Inc., which has a global f ranchise for the FPAAs, and AMSC, which distributes the devices in Japan. Worldwide, the company has logged more than 1,000 downloads of its free software.

Anadigm is also encouraged because its two primary investors returned for the second round, Kay said. Leading the investment was 3i Group plc, with participation from Quester Capital Management Ltd., both based in England.

"The fundamental technology is unique and protected by a strong patent position, and the opportunity to utilize programmable analog technology in electronic systems is large," said Quester investment manager Jeremy Milne, who is on Anadigm's board.

New participation came from NIF Ventures Co., the venture capital arm of Japan's Daiwa Bank. Motorola Inc. also holds a minority stake in Anadigm, which was spun out of Motorola's former programmable logic group.

Kay says there are still hurdles to overcome. While prospective users are giving the chips high marks for ease of use and consider their performance and die size "ade quate," a significant percentage thought the projected volume price of $20 was too expensive, Kay said.

"What we're pushing for this year is recognition as a credible reprogrammable analog solution with ease-of-use tools that appeal to designers," he said.

New competitors such as Cypress Microsystems and Lattice Semiconductor are helping to bring acceptance to the programmable analog arena, he said, noting that traditional analog suppliers have not had success migrating there.