Re: EasyPath, demystified

Ben,

-snip-

Sounds quite reasonable. So, technologically there's nothing holding Altera
back in investing in a few extra ("standard") device testers and, as an
intermediate price-reduction step, doing same under the hereby trademarked
name "Crippledie" (come to think of it, sounds great as the title of an
ultra-violent FPS game taking place in a hospital or a leper colony too -
I'll have a chat with my local EA Games marketing guy).

Except that 'EasyPath' has patents pending with a number of claims that would prevent Altera from having an EasyPath clone (without paying us for the rights to do so).

I can't imagine that only partially testing an ASIC is patentable - but then
again, one-click-shopping is patentable as well according the USPTO so I
wouldn't be surprised.

Imagine if you will a car company that makes a top of the line car, and sells it for a lot of money. Now emagine the same company establishing a different distributorship for a lower cost version of the similar car, less chrome, less power windows, etc. (but basically all the same subcomponents).

Happens all the time, doesn't it?

Jaguar/Volvo/Lincoln/Ford.  Buick/Potiac/GMC/Chevy.  Lexus/Toyota. ...


Then of course there's HardCopy2, which, like EasyPath, only needs to be
tested with the user design _but also_ is a lot smaller in die size. 

Thus:

Better Yield+Shorter Time+Smaller Area = Even Lower Cost to Altera, which
means even Lower Prices to customer. No ECO and no last-minute changes
though, I'll give you that.

Am I right? 

Yes, but ....

An ASIC is always going to be lower cost, only if the volume can overcome the NRE cost. Now if Altera is happy to eat a majority of the NRE, and have lower margins (which, by the way they announced last financial report), then the customer benefits (obviously).

But, for every change, the whole cost picture is thrown out, as the line stops until the new good parts can be delivered.

Since H2 is not even pin compatible with the S2, the pcb must be redesigned. In some cases (most) the signal integrity analysis of all IOs must be repeated. I have heard a case where the cost of the H2 is very high, as the package is very expensive (that the customer wants).

To go from flip chip, back to a cheap wirebond package may result in Signal Integrity issues that can not be solved!

(By the way, I will not even go into how the H2 is not even a logic equivalent to S2: there are features and components that are just different between the two!)

With EasyPath, you go from the working solution, to a less costly working solution with no redesign whatsover, and no risk at all.

Seems like a simple problem to me: choose H2 and have a potentially career limiting experience, or choose EasyPath and go home happy every night....

Austin
.

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