Apr 17 2009
Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (Grace), one of the leading semiconductor foundries in China, announced delivery of its advanced 0.18 micron RFCMOS process design kit (PDK) through an exclusive 0.18 micron RFCMOS collaboration with Sentinel IC Technologies (Sentinel). The Grace 0.18 micron RFCMOS PDK is an innovative design enablement platform that overcomes limitations common to the current industry standard PDKs. The PDK integrates innovative, fully scalable parametric cells (PCELLS) rich in RF centric features with a state of the art modeling and simulation platform. The combination enables designers to maximize chip performance and to reduce die size, while greatly shortening design cycle times. Grace's 0.18 micron industry baseline RFCMOS technology offers multiple Vt MOSFET libraries at 1.8 and 3.3V, thick top metal for high quality inductors, MOS and junction varactors, high density MiM capacitors, deep Nwell isolation, and an industry leading resistor offering including low and high value poly resistors.
At the core of the PDK is an advanced fully scalable modeling platform physically linked to the manufacturing process. An innovative process variation simulation platform greatly reduces design time while minimizing over and under design common in the industry. The industry standard advanced PSP MOSFET model provides critical RF design advantages in areas of distortion, noise, scalability, and process variation simulation. Fully scalable industry standard MOSVAR and custom junction varactor models offer designers complete design trade off flexibility in frequency tuning elements critical for RF applications. A fully characterized scalable inductor design platform provides designers unprecedented inductor design flexibility. Scalable models for high density MiM capacitors and a wide range of poly silicon resistors including resistor 1/f noise characterization round out the RF toolbox.
The RF/analog design enablement platform provides an ideal complement to Grace's rich base digital process, extensive silicon verified IP libraries, and best in class manufacturing process control. The platform drives maximum IC performance while reducing development investment and long term production costs. These benefits enable first pass success products differentiated by performance and cost, conducive to maximum market penetration.
Grace and Sentinel have established their collaboration in 2008. "The cooperation between Grace and Sentinel has resulted in this significant milestone within a very short time frame and we are looking forward to further successes from this partnership to provide advanced design enablement solutions to our customers," said Dr. Peter Weigand, Vice President, Marketing and Design Services of Grace.
Dr. James Victory, cofounder and President of Sentinel said, "Grace brings incredible value to the foundry market through high quality innovative technology with aggressive roadmaps. Sentinel is proud to partner with Grace to add industry leading design enablement platforms to the Grace portfolio."