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PaulBoddie (talk | contribs) →Concerns with early gate arrays, attempts at innovation: Added Silicon Design System details. |
PaulBoddie (talk | contribs) →Concerns with early gate arrays, attempts at innovation: Added Qudos Quickchip details. |
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Ferranti followed up on the ULA Designer with the Silicon Design System product based on the VAX-11/730 with 1 MB of RAM, 120 MB Winchester disk, and utilising a high-resolution display driven by a graphics unit with 500 KB of its own memory for "high speed windowing, painting, and editing capabilities". The software itself was available separately for organisations already likely to be using VAX-11/780 systems to provide a multi-user environment, but the "standalone system" package of hardware and software was intended to provide a more affordable solution with a "faster response" during the design process. The suite of tools involved in the use of the product included logic entry and test schedule definition (using Ferranti's own description languages), logic simulation, layout definition and checking, and mask generation for prototype gate arrays. The system also sought to support completely auto-routed designs, utilising architectural features of Ferranti's auto-routable (AR) arrays to deliver a "100-percent success auto-layout system" with this convenience incurring an increase in silicon area of approximately 25 percent. <ref name="computerdesign198403_ferranti">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_computerDe_409597766/page/197/mode/1up | title=Automation Cuts Design Time for Gate Arrays | magazine=Computer Design | date=March 1984 | access-date=1 March 2022 | last1=Walker | first1=Anthony V. | pages=197-198,200,202,204 }}</ref>
Other British companies developed products for gate array design and fabrication. Qudos Limited, a spin-off from Cambridge University, offered a chip design product called Quickchip available for VAX and MicroVAX II systems and as a complete $11,000 turnkey solution, providing a suite of tools broadly similar to those of Ferranti's products including automatic layout, routing, rule checking and simulation functionality for the design of gate arrays. Qudos employed electron beam lithography,<ref name="electronicbusiness19861015_trends">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/sim_electronic-business_1986-10-15_12_20/page/46/mode/1up | title=An emerging market for British engineering tools | magazine=Electronic Business | date=15 October 1986 | access-date=2 March 2022 | last1=Coffey | first1=Margaret | pages=46,48 }}</ref> etching designs onto Ferranti ULA devices that formed the physical basis of these custom chips. Typical prototype production costs were stated as £100 per chip.<ref name="acornuser198604_qudos">{{ cite news | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser045-Apr86/page/n16/mode/1up | title=Universities choose chip design on Beeb | work=Acorn User | date=April 1986 | accessdate=10 October 2020 | pages=15 }}</ref> Quickchip was subsequently ported to the [[Acorn Cambridge Workstation]], with a low-end version for the [[BBC Micro]],<ref name="acornuser198609_qudos">{{ cite news | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser050-Sep86/page/n8/mode/1up | title=News in brief | work=Acorn User | date=September 1986 | accessdate=10 October 2020 | pages=7 }}</ref> and to the [[Acorn Archimedes]].<ref name="acorn_app155">{{ cite book | url=http://www.4corn.co.uk/archive/docs/AMPAPP/150/APP155%20(1st%20ed)%20-%20(1988)-opt.pdf | title=Hardware expansion and software applications for the Archimedes system | publisher=Acorn Computers Limited | date=September 1988 | issue=1 | access-date=25 April 2021 | pages=22 }}</ref>
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