Interview Chetan Khona: The World is Shrinking

Computer chips are more powerful and versatile than ever and they’re getting smaller every day. A company making this happen is Xilinx, based in San Jose, California, and it is one from just a handful of innovators shaping the future of semiconductors. The inventor of the field programmable gate array (FPGA) has just been acquired by microprocessor giant AMD for the staggering sum of $35 billion. Smart Industry sat down with Chetan Khona, Director, Industrial, Vision, Healthcare & Sciences at AMD. The company that invented the field programmable gate array (FPGA) has just been acquired by microprocessor giant AMD for the staggering sum of $35 billion.

I bet these last few months have been an exciting time to work for Xilinx.

Yeah, Tim, it sure is. Recently, we’ve doubled down on our products geared for my segment of the market: industrial vision, healthcare and sciences. And, if you haven’t noticed, we’ve announced about five years’ worth of products for industrial and healthcare IoT edge applications in the past few months.

Just because Moore's law has slowed down slightly doesn't mean geometries aren't still shrinking.
_{Chetan Khona, Director, Industrial, Vision, Healthcare & Sciences at AMD - Interview about FPGA}

So, you already have your work cut out for you for the next five years.

Yes, absolutely. We just announced our cost-optimised portfolio at 16 nanometers, our Artix UltraScale+ in our extensions towards Zynq UltraScale+ devices that are amazingly popular in industrial healthcare IoT systems. In April of this year, we introduced our Kria system-on-modules that enable developers to programme and differentiate their designs at the software level, without requiring FPGA programming experience. Then, in June of this year, we announced our Versal AI edge products for people who don’t really know what FPGAs are. It’s an Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform (ACAP) for realtime systems in automated driving, predictive factory and healthcare systems, multi-mission payloads in aerospace and defense, and a breadth of other applications.

Could you explain what role they play in the development of IoT systems?

Sure, adaptive system-on-a-chip, or SoC FPGA for short, is what our Zynq and Zynq UltraScale+, and now our Versal AI edge devices offer: processing at the IoT edge, right at the analog digital boundary. They enable scalability from low to mid to high-end systems but also allow you to keep running software on a consistent Arm processing subsystem. In addition, they have customised acceleration blocks for a variety of applications ranging from things like electric drive to patient monitors and security cameras, all with the same device. We call this ‘plat-form design’ and platforms are critical to industrial and healthcare IoT design.

What is FPGA DNA?

When we say FPGA DNA, we are referring to the fact that, even though we have systems-on-chips, what separates ours from traditional SoCs supplied by other semiconductor manufacturers is that, in addition the usual set of status-quo features, we also offer fabric FPGAs to go along with them. In the past, you’ve often seen a processor sitting next to an FPGA, now you essentially are getting the functions of both devices in one because we’ve brought the FPGA and the processor together under one hood.

You mentioned platforms. Why are they critical in situations like this?

Xilinx has identified a few key pieces that are used in virtually all industrial and healthcare IoT systems; things like functional safety, cybersecurity, connectivity, control, vision, mixed criticality, embedded software and edge AI. These are pieces that are used in almost all new industrial and healthcare IoT designs. If you have to start designing from scratch every time, you might have a product out by the end of the decade, so good luck to you! But the platform concept helps you to be more efficient by reusing blocks and leveraging your investment. When you mix the scalability of Xilinx SoCs with this platform in concept, you get what a lot of our customers would feel is a winning combination.

The semiconductor world is moving quickly to things like miniaturisation, lower power, lightweight or even entirely wireless. What can Xilinx bring to the table here?

You’re so right! I mean, no one out there is selling products that are bigger, slower or require more power. The world in all aspects of life is moving to smaller, lighter, wireless and battery power. In the short term, there is this concept of compute density that we’re really focused on. As more and more processing is moving to the extreme edge, to the analog/digital boundary, compute density increasingly becomes a bigger deal. That’s something we’ve tapped into with InFO packaging in the cost-optimised portfolio extensions that we have just announced.

Tell us something about integrated fan out. What is it and why should customers be interested?

I wouldn’t recommend your readers try this at home but if you were to crack open your mobile phone – and maybe you have one, you know, with a fruit logo on it – you’ll see examples of InFO packaging in action. Integrated fan out eliminates the substrate that acts as the interconnect between the dye and the balls that connect up to the printed circuit board. What this means is that you’re getting the most compute density per square millimetre of any embedded processor on the planet without reducing IO count. Typically speaking, you’re going to see 60 percent smaller size, 70 percent lower height, with zero IO loss. Having that kind of computational horsepower in something smaller than the size of your fingernail is an absolute game changer for many industries.

You know, that sounds like the end of the road for chip miniaturisation, doesn’t it?

How can you possibly get any smaller? Well, this is independent from the natural scaling that takes place, right? Even though Moore’s Law has slowed down slightly over time, that doesn’t mean that geometries aren’t still shrinking. Right now, our 16 nanometer products are probably mainstream for many applications, but we’ve announced products, many of which are already entering into full-ramp production, that work at seven nanometers, and the world is shrinking even more. If the dye shrinks even further, the InFO packaging will have to shrink along with it. You were personally involved in the Xilinx solution approach.

What is your primary focus and what are your core vertical markets?

At Xilinx, we have eight markets that we’re really focused on, namely wired and wireless communication, data centres, automotive, aerospace and defense, test and measurement, audio-video broadcast, consumer electronics, and then my market which is industrial vision, healthcare and sciences which makes up almost 40 percent of the total number of customers Xilinx has out there.

You are partnering with Avnet Silica, the sponsors of this magazine and the corresponding podcast, We Talk IoT, in which you’ve already appeared. What is Avnet’s role in your go-to-market process?

As we touched on when you asked about the ecosystem, we’re fortunate to have partners, and in this case Avnet Silica, as a close cooperative partner with whom we can generate clear value for customers on a daily basis. They do the distribution and financial services, support and upfront architectural advisement for customers’ design services, from the chip to the board to connectivity to the cloud. They do the training and events that draw a lot of people, whether in person or, these days especially, online but most importantly for us, they’re a trusted partner that our customers think of first and can count on even in such uncertain times. I would say they are the key player in my own business go-to-market process.

Learn more about FPGA solutions from AMD Xilinx here

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