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SAN MATEO, CALIF. - As the complex-programmable logic device (CPLD) market continues to mature, the battle for market share is moving from the crowded arena occupied by the high-volume devices to the lesser-traveled markets.
Three suppliers this week will announce new versions of their established CPLD families targeted at niche markets. Atmel Corp. will introduce a low-power version of its high-density 44-pin programmable device, military-qualified flash versions of its integrated devices, and a new class of applications software that produces a hard layout of an inputted digital signal processing function with a generated schematic symbol.
Xilinx Inc. will announce a faster version of its XC7000 CPLD family that is also compliant with the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) standard.
Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has introduced a new family of 7.5-ns CPLDs that will build upon its established Performance architecture.
In the wake of the exit by AMD and others from the military market, Atmel hopes to capitalize on the opportunity by producing standard and low-power military versions of their 16V8B, 20V8B, and 22V10B industry-standard devices. The three devices are guaranteed from 55 to 125 and are available in ceramic dual-in-line and ceramic leadless chip carrier packages.
The military makes up 10% of the PLD market and 20% of Atmel's business, according to Jeffrey Katz, director of marketing for the San Jose, Calif.-based company.
"We don't do custom military production; we use a standard costing system. We also have a standard military fab. There is additional expense on the packaging part as well as the testing level but not on the fabrication level," he said.
Atmel's three new military PLDs are completely compatible with the commercial PLDs, and the industry-standard architecture allows compatibility with off-the-shelf software...