CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
5 March 2009
Implementation Investments
Mentor Graphics Eldo Simulator used by STMicroelectronics to Characterize 32nm Cell Libraries
Mentor Graphics Corporation announced that STMicroelectronics, a global leader in developing and delivering semiconductor solutions across the spectrum of microelectronics applications, has used the Mentor Graphics Eldo® circuit simulator to characterize its first CMOS 32nm cell libraries. The companies are long-term partners in the domain of advanced circuit simulation techniques for digital and analog IP characterization. This cooperation was recently brought to even higher levels, to ensure the successful development of a characterization flow optimized for the leading-edge CMOS 32nm high-K metal gate low power ISDA (International Semiconductor Development Alliance) process.
“STMicroelectronics is a leader in delivering a complete CMOS 32nm design solution to our customers that optimizes design productivity for low power designs without compromising the performance, quality or the silicon correlation. To achieve this goal, we have built a reliable ecosystem with our long-term partner, Mentor. We worked together to develop a robust solution for the design and characterization of our libraries for our worldwide design teams,” said Gérard Mas, CMOS Libraries Group Director of the Technology Research and Development group at STMicroelectronics.
Because of low power design techniques, the variety of CAD tools to support and the complexity of the deep submicron devices, the number of simulations required to collect the data for a library characterization can be very large. In parallel, the accuracy required for each simulation requires the designer to use the most advanced MOSFET models (PSP) and the most accurate description of the parasitic networks. To maintain productivity, the complete simulation system must be optimized for that technology node. The Eldo simulator has been able to handle this dramatic increase in model complexity and accuracy requirements with runtimes at, or close to, those of previous design generations.
STMicroelectronics and Mentor also put together an intense collaboration program to make the entire characterization process, which requires effective load distribution and balancing on huge CPU farms, as smooth and robust as possible.
“Given the data volume, manual inspection is not an option. The entire characterization must be a ‘push-button’ automated process, even when each individual simulation is a challenge with these advanced technology nodes and associated models. We developed quite a sophisticated infrastructure to achieve this goal, and Mentor demonstrated the required reactivity, resources, and engineering commitment to let us reach the desired productivity level,” said Laurent Bergher, CMOS Standard Cell Libraries Group Manager at STMicroelectronics.
The available solution is now being used in production for both logic and analog libraries (including ADCs, DACs, PLLs, Oscillators, and others) where simulation accuracy and noise analysis are critical concerns. The close ST and Mentor collaboration also enabled the sophisticated ageing models developed by ST process reliability experts to be implemented in the Eldo simulator via the widely used Eldo UDRM (User Defined Reliability Modeling) API.
“The close cooperation between Mentor and STMicroelectronics continues to be very important to the strategies of both companies. ST is a world leader in Analog and Mixed Signal Design and our work together helped Mentor provide solutions in advanced areas such as the production-level environment for CMOS 32nm library characterization,” said Robert Hum, Vice President and General Manager of the Deep Sub Micron (DSM) division at Mentor Graphics.
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