Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. (TSE: 2330; NYSE: TSM) today unveiled the foundry industry's first Mixed Signal/Radio Frequency Reference Design Kit (MS/RF RDK) at its North American Technology Symposium in San Jose. The RDK initially targets 65nm process technology and aims to accelerate analog, mixed-signal, and RF designs and RF SoC verification and integration. The MS/RF RDK is the result of multi-year collaboration between TSMC and Cadence Design Systems and represents one of the initial deliverables of the TSMC Open Innovation Platform(TM).
The new RDK helps resolve the long-standing challenge of full chip verification of SoCs with both analog, mixed signal and digital content. It enables a top-down MS/RF design methodology and a system-level simulation flow to reduce design cycle time and encourage IP reuse. The reference design in the RDK is an advanced Fractional-N Phase Locked Loop (PLL) developed in TSMC 65nm RF process technology and fully validated in silicon with accurate correlation between simulation results and silicon measurements.
The RDK includes a video tutorial and step-by-step design manual; the complete PLL reference design database with schematics, layouts, and simulation test benches; a design flow and methodology introduction; silicon test reports, release notes specifying design tool and version requirements and a TSMC 65nm process design kit (PDK).
"Enhancing innovation in the MS/RF design space is one key initiative of the TSMC Open Innovation Platform," explains ST Juang, senior director of Design Infrastructure Marketing at TSMC. "The TSMC MS/RF RDK delivers a new level of confidence to our customers that complex MS/RF blocks can be created and accurately verified in the context of full chip RF SoCs, and taped out with high quality, thus ensuring first-pass silicon success. We continue to collaborate with our ecosystem partners to enhance the features and capabilities of the RDK to address emerging MS/RF design challenges."