TSMC Launches First Advanced Technology Interoperable Process Design Kit
July 21 2009 - 4:00AM
PR Newswire (US)
Industry-Wide Collaborative Development Effort Delivers First
Unified iPDK for 65nm Process HSINCHU, Taiwan, R.O.C., July 21
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Company, Ltd. (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced the release
of the semiconductor industry's first interoperable process design
kit (iPDK) for advanced technology. The kit is fully validated on
TSMC's 65 nanometer (nm) process and represents the newest design
initiative to come from the company's Open Innovation Platform(TM),
focusing on enhancing innovation in custom, analog, mixed-signal
and RF designs. TSMC unified iPDK works across multiple
OpenAccess(TM)-based EDA design environments, eliminating the need
for multiple proprietary PDKs, and enabling full reuse of design
data between different custom IC design toolsets. The iPDK
initiative is supported by all major EDA vendors including Cadence,
Magma, Mentor, Springsoft, Synopsys, and others. The first iPDK in
65nm was developed in collaboration with TSMC development partners,
Synopsys and Ciranova, and QA/validation partners, Magma and
Springsoft. Its interoperable approach improves design accuracy,
shortens design cycle times, promotes design reuse, and improves
return on design investment. "The iPDK is a long-awaited solution
to many of the design problems that have delayed new technology and
tool adoption. Multiple and/or incompatible PDKs on proprietary
custom design databases have limited design reuse and portability,
and has resulted in high development, maintenance and support costs
for all ecosystem partners including TSMC," explains ST Juang,
senior director of design infrastructure marketing at TSMC. "The
interoperable design kit will enable higher level of innovation and
differentiation for our customers in full custom, analog, and
mixed-signal designs." TSMC iPDK is based on the OpenAccess
database and data model. It features open standard languages, Tcl
and Python, for parameterized layout cells, callbacks, and
technology files and includes unified views of symbols. The modern
and flexible architecture easily accommodates specific
customizations, future feature extensions and advanced and
differentiated development. Customers will be able to extend the
iPDK in the languages supported by the custom design tools of their
choice. The iPDK also includes SKILL(TM) callbacks and component
description format (CDF) files to provide compatibility with
current OpenAccess-based PDKs and Cadence IC6.1 environment. TSMC
continues to collaborate closely with key EDA partners to ensure
full interoperability between the new TSMC iPDK and the currently
available PDKs. The new TSMC iPDK's single interoperable data model
and highly productive development infrastructure enables new iPDKs
to be developed quickly and with consistent quality, and be
available earlier for advanced process technology nodes. TSMC
iPDK's interoperability with multiple EDA tools and design flows
remove design tool and flow adoption barrier, and offer customers
more choices of design tools. The result is faster adoption of
tools and flow that accelerate time-to-design-start for custom
analog, mixed signal and RF designs. TSMC iPDK unified data model
on industry-standard OpenAccess database enables design reuse that
is not possible with multiple proprietary PDKs and design
databases. It eliminates duplicate PDK development efforts,
significantly reduces PDK development, validation and support costs
across the design ecosystem, and promotes innovation in analog and
full custom design. Pricing and Availability The TSMC 65nm iPDK
will be available July 2009 in limited release and at no charge to
selected customers. General release to other customers is targeted
for Q4 2009. Customers may access the 65nm iPDK at the TSMC Online
customer design portal http://online.tsmc.com/online/ or contact
their local sales and support representatives for details. TSMC's
Open Innovation Platform(TM) TSMC's Open Innovation Platform(TM)
promotes timeliness-driven innovation amongst the semiconductor
design community, its ecosystem partners and TSMC's IP, design
implementation and DFM capabilities, process technology and backend
services. The Open Innovation Platform includes a set of ecosystem
interfaces and collaborative components initiated and supported by
TSMC that efficiently empower innovation throughout the supply
chain and enables the sharing of newly-created revenue and
profitability. TSMC's Active Accuracy Assurance initiative is
critical to the Open Innovation Platform, providing the accuracy
and quality required in ecosystem interfaces and collaborative
components. About TSMC is the world's largest dedicated
semiconductor foundry, providing the industry's leading process
technology and the foundry's largest portfolio of process-proven
libraries, IP, design tools and reference flows. The Company's
total managed capacity in 2008 exceeded 9 million (8-inch
equivalent) wafers, including capacity from two advanced 12-inch -
GigaFabs(TM), four eight-inch fabs, one six-inch fab, as well as
TSMC's wholly owned subsidiaries, WaferTech and TSMC (China), and
its joint venture fab, SSMC. TSMC is the first foundry to provide
40nm production capabilities. Its corporate headquarters are in
Hsinchu, Taiwan. For more information about TSMC please visit
http://www.tsmc.com/. DATASOURCE: TSMC CONTACT: Wendy Matthews,
TSMC North America Corporate, +1-408-382-8030, or Michael Kramer,
Public Relations, 886-3-5636688, ext. 7126216, both of TSMC Web
Site: http://www.tsmc.com/
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