MoSys, a provider of semiconductor solutions, today announced that Macnica Americas, a provider of semiconductor distribution and design services, will support the GigaChip Interface in its distribution and technology innovation business.

The GigaChip Interface (GCI) is a scalable, high-performance, serial protocol for chip-to-chip communications that is differentiated in efficiency and reliability, resulting in system-level benefits of reduced power, cost and complexity. Current implementations built with compatible CEI-11G or XFI SerDes electrical transport standards deliver up to 144Gb per second (Gbps) of full duplex data throughput using 16 SerDes lanes when running at a 10G rate. A key differentiator for the GCI protocol is high transport efficiency, even for small payloads. Alternative serial interfaces are typically less than 50 percent efficient when transferring 8 bit and 16 bit data, which means that they deliver less than half the performance at a given bandwidth. The combination of 90 percent transport efficiency, from small to large payloads, with power efficient short reach physical interconnect makes GCI ideal for co-processor, memory, or multi-chip communication. The interface also includes CRC error detection and automatic error recovery provisions to meet the high reliability requirements of enterprise, service provider, and mission-critical communications and compute applications. GCI is an open, royalty-free interface specification designed for use with MoSys’ Bandwidth Engine family of ICs and is suitable for any chip-to-chip interconnect.

“As a provider of turnkey FPGA design services, we have substantial expertise in high-speed communications protocols and networking, and have seen firsthand the pain points caused by the limitations of more traditional interface protocols,” said Marc Levy, Chief Technical Officer for Macnica Americas. “We believe that leveraging the GigaChip Interface for chip-to-chip communications in high-speed, high-density complex FPGA designs provides the performance, efficiency and reliability necessary to enable 100G systems and beyond.”

“Macnica Americas is one of North America’s leading providers of high-performance semiconductor design and distribution services. We are delighted to have Macnica’s support of the GigaChip Interface in its FPGA design services and technology innovation business,” said John Monson, Vice President of Marketing for MoSys. “Through our collaboration and combined expertise in high-speed communications protocols and networking, MoSys and Macnica are poised to provide powerful solutions that connect MoSys’ Bandwidth Engine ICs with leading FPGAs through the GigaChip Interface, while delivering on fast time-to-market requirements.”