Rochester Electronics, a fully-authorised manufacturer and distributor of semiconductors, offers replication of processors versus a less reliable device emulation through its Semiconductor Replication Process (SRP).
There are several companies within the semiconductor industry selling their emulated versions of popular processors originally produced by Freescale and Intel.
Because Rochester Electronics receives processor intellectual property (IP) from the original manufacturer, there is no need to emulate. Rochester’s methodology is essentially a fab porting exercise similar to what those companies would do when transferring a product from one fabrication facility to another.
The end product is the same die size, same transistor count, same interconnect, and within specs the original manufacturer would have shipped, with no software errata. Emulated processors have new errata as compared to the original product. Replicated processors from Rochester Electronics do not.
“Emulated processors are done in a different technology node than the original, which potentially introduces new behavior after a customer has fully populated their boards and done extensive testing at the system level with real code. Replicated processors from Rochester Electronics do not have this problem. Our customers receive a true replacement with no surprise errata on processors,” said Dan Deisz, director of design and technology at Rochester Electronics.
