QuickLogic Corporation has announced production shipments of the first two members of its lowest-power PolarPro family of FPGAs, the QL1P075 and the QL1P100. With gate counts of 75,000 and 100,00 respectively, power consumption of these devices is said to be 98% lower than competing flash-based FPGAs and 99% lower than competing SRAM-based FPGAs. Standby current is a critical factor governing battery life in portable and handheld consumer electronics. Designed specifically to address this issue, the new very low power (VLP) mode integrated into these devices exhibits quiescent currents that are nearly half that of the closest "zero-power" CPLD, 98% less than the closest Flash-based FPGA, and 99% less than the closest SRAM-based FPGA.

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"PolarPro FPGAs provide us with the unique combination of programmability, ASIC-like power consumption and competitive pricing," said Keith Jasinski, project engineer at Mortara Instrument. "These attributes enable us to create custom ICs for our portable medical products that maximize battery life and minimize total system cost."

"Customer acceptance of PolarPro has been strong, with several design wins in portable consumer electronics, portable medical applications and reference designs from Tier 1 semiconductor companies," said Brian Faith, QuickLogic's senior director of marketing. QuickLogic expects to sample the QL1P300, with 300,000 gates, this quarter; production is expected later in 2006.