CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
23 July 2004
Company News
austriamicrosystems is the First to Fully Comply with Mixed-Signal/RF Process Design KIT Guidelines From FSA
austriamicrosystems' Full Service Foundry announced that it is the first to adopt the Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA) mixed-signal/RF Process Design Kit (PDK) guidelines for its foundry customers. A PDK is a set of data files that enables analog circuit and layout designers to efficiently design an integrated circuit (IC) using a set of electronic design automation (EDA) tools in a selected foundry process.
The checklist, developed by the FSA's Mixed-Signal/RF Foundry Committee, is delivered with each release version of a mixed-signal/RF PDK developed or co-developed by foundries, EDA tool vendors or design service companies. It showcases best practices in the semiconductor industry and serves as the ingredients list and "nutrition facts panel" for a design kit describing simulation models, technology files, design rule files and parameterized cell generators used to design today's complex mixed-signal and RF ICs.
"The checklist sheds light on this controversial supply-chain issue, and we hope it will become the de facto standard for identifying best practices in PDK development," said Jodi Shelton, co-founder and executive director of the FSA, being the global voice of fabless and hybrid semiconductor companies and their foundry and supply-chain partners. Incorporated in 1994, the Association is focused on the perpetuation of the fabless business model throughout the worldwide semiconductor industry.
The FSA Mixed-Signal/RF PDK Checklist and instructions can be downloaded free of charge from the FSA Web site at http://www.fsa.org/committees/foundry
The completed checklists for austriamicrosystems' HIT-Kits v3.60 can be found at http://asic.austriamicrosystems.com/hitkit/hk360/
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