Samsung, Xilinx Back Programmable Chip Startup

　　Programmable logic vendor Xilinx Inc. and the venture capital arm of Samsung Electronics were among a handful of firms to provide $9.5 million in funding to Efinix, a developer of silicon-based programmable product platforms based in Silicon Valley.

　　Efinix (Santa Clara, Calif.), founded in 2012, has raised a total of $16 million. The company says its Quantum programmable technology delivers a four-fold power, performance and area advantage over traditional technologies. The technology is based on what Efinix calls an XLR (exchangeable logic and routing) cell that can function as either a look-up table (LUT)-based logic cell or  routing switch encoded with a scalable, flexible routing structure.

　　According to Efinix, this technology improves the active area utilization by 4X compared with traditional FPGAs, resulting in up to 4X area efficiency and 2X power consumption advantage.

　　According to the company's website, Efinix is currently developing silicon products based on Quantum and expects to begin sampling in Decemeber of this year.

　　The funding round was led by Xilinx and Hong Kong X Technology Fund, an investment firm supported by Sequoia Capital China and focused on fast-growing tech firms. Samsung Ventures, Hong Kong Inno Capital and Brizan Investments also participated in the funding round, according to Efinix.

　　Sammy Cheung, co-founder, CEO, and president of Efinix, said in a press statement that the company plans to use the funding to launch a number of joint development projects in the coming months in addition to the chips.

　　"High-volume applications and markets are prime targets for our Quantum-accelerated products," Cheung said.

　　Also in the press statement, Salil Raje, senior vice president of the software and IP products group at Xilinx, said, "Efinix’s solution can address a wide variety of applications that are typically not served by today’s FPGAs."

　　An unnamed representative from Samsung Ventures said Samsung envisions many applications that feature Quantum technology embedded inside ASICs, ASSPs or FPGAs.