Faraday Technology is sampling an “application-specific structured ASIC” chip that incorporates an ARM processor core, USB, Ethernet, on-chip encryption, and other useful IP blocks. The Peripheral Composer-1 (PC-1) supports Linux, comes with development tools, and targets low-volume devices requiring low NRE costs (non-recoverable expenses), according to Faraday.

The PC-1 includes a low-power 190MHz ARM CPU core, USB 2.0 device and OTG ports, a 10/100 Ethernet port, an encryption engine, memory controllers, optional 802.11b wireless LAN modem, an 8-channel 10-bit 200 Ksps ADC, and other system peripherals and connectivity blocks. Additionally, one million Metal Programmable Cell Array (MPCA) gates, 64KB of memory, and 153 pins of programmable I/Os are available for custom logic, according to the company.

Block diagram of the PC-1 ASIC
Linux and Windows CE development support is available with the PC-1. The chip comes with an integrated development environment (IDE), an in-circuit emulator, evaluation boards, and documentation.

Engineering samples of the PC-1 are available now, manufactured in UMC's 0.18um process and packaged in 308-/388-/384-/484-pin FBGAs. Typical NRE is $144,000, Faraday claims, and the chip is priced at $13 in 10,000 piece quantities.

Additional information, including chip and development board features and specs, appears in our earlier coverage of the initial announcement of the PC-1 ASIC.

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