Flex Logix develops energy- and cost-efficient processors for running AI workloads at the compute edge. The company has announced availability of its X1 AI chip aimed at embedding AI into products such as medical imaging equipment and robotics. Its chips prioritize tight power, size, and price constraints to ease integration into end products. Flex Logix has built a strong well of intellectual property in the eFPGA space to provide flexible, adaptable processors. The company has attracted venture funding from strategic backers and recently closed a new financing round to support its product and IP efforts. Geoff Tate is the company’s founder and CEO, and his investment vehicle has participated in prior rounds. Flex Logix Technologies, Inc. is a Mountain View, CA–based supplier of embedded FPGA IP and software. Founded in March 2014 and led by CEO Geoff Tate, the company provides reconfigurable RTL solutions for chip and system designs using embedded FPGA IP cores and software. Its platform can be used with networking chips with reconfigurable protocols, datacenter chips with reconfigurable accelerators, deep learning chips with real-time upgradeable algorithms, base station chips with customizable features, MCU/IoT chips with flexible I/O and accelerators, and aerospace/defense applications including rad-hard embedded FPGA. The company has sales representative offices in China, Europe, Israel, Japan, Taiwan and Texas. Flex Logix secured $5M in Series B equity financing and has raised more than $12M in venture capital to date. It intends to use the funds to expand its sales, applications and engineering teams. Flex Logix licenses its patented EFLX Arrays, which enable FPGAs to be embedded into SoCs so key functions can be optimized or customized after a device is fabricated and even updated in the field. The company positions this capability as reducing manufacturing and design risk, increasing development flexibility, and accelerating technology roadmaps across applications. Flex Logix is led by CEO Geoff Tate, the founding CEO of Rambus, and its co-founders include academics and engineers who won the 2014 Lewis Award for Outstanding Paper at ISSCC. The company will use new capital to expand engineering and sales teams, boost marketing efforts, recruit leaders in chip design and networking applications architecture, and pursue other strategic initiatives. The announcement cites growing customer traction and proven software tools supporting the product. Flex Logix develops EFLX embedded FPGA cores that can be integrated into custom chips to provide post‑shipment reprogrammability and reduce the need for costly respins. Its cores come in multiple sizes (about 100, 2,500, and 10,000 LUTs) so customers can choose capacity for IoT up to high‑end devices, and Flex Logix estimates licensing will add less than $0.15 to chip manufacturing cost. The company positions its on‑chip network as faster and more efficient than stand‑alone FPGAs, claiming a 50% reduction in interconnect circuitry per its founders’ award‑winning ISSCC paper. Flex Logix is licensing its IP rather than building full chips, has applied for numerous patents, and is engaging potential customers across industries such as communications, automotive, aerospace, and medical. Management says the team is keeping burn low and is “fine in terms of cash,” and the company aims to be in billions of chips later this decade.

Total raised

$67M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series D

Latest activity

Mar 2021