The Economics of ASICs: At What Point Does a Custom SoC Become Viable? (2019)

Re:The Economics of ASICs: At What Point Does a Custom SoC B... by rathel on Friday May 22, 2020 @05:41AM (#23270238)

Japanese companies seem to have a boner for custom ASICs. I never understood that. For example Roland uses custom chips [1] for their synthesizers and effects, where they could use almost any DSP on the market.

Likewise printer manufacturers go for a huge SoC where they could get an application processor that suits their needs and couple it with a specialized printer chip. [2]

What's the deal?

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/psychlist1972/37188679832

[2] https://news.synopsys.com/2020-05-21-Fuji-Xerox-Adopts-Synop...

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Re:The Economics of ASICs: At What Point Does a Custom SoC B... by StormChaser_5 on Friday May 22, 2020 @05:54AM (#23270321)

Because its cheaper.

An off the shelf AP is often going to have a lot of functionality you are not going to use but you are going to be paying for. It's going to consume power driving signals back and forth to the specialised printer chip. Its going to cost money to control inventory and deal with two chips when one could do the job. It may be end of lifed at an awkward time causing you to have to redesign or store a lot of inventory.

And it really isn't that much more expensive to develop one big SoC if you are already developing a specialised chip to go with the AP.

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Re:The Economics of ASICs: At What Point Does a Custom SoC B... by raverbashing on Friday May 22, 2020 @11:22AM (#23273073)

I suspect not all ASICs are "true" ASICS (and I mean, fully custom chips), sometimes they're just custom versions of specific chips, not built "from zero", then just the custom print on the chip.

(someone with more experience feel free to give more detail or to correct me)

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