Electronics > Beginners
Chip making process
coppice:
--- Quote from: Kjelt on October 15, 2018, 07:40:43 pm ---I had a "chip process"intro course two years ago, just looked through the notes, the costs are staggering.
The design (only the design) costs as rule of thumb $1/transistor, the examples given all had more than 100M transistors so I guess for lower amounts of transistors this might be much higher.
The reticles (need two per layer) you need at least 20 depending on the nr of layers, are for the lower layers around $100k/piece upto $300k/piece for state of the art tech.
Don't know what your company like to invest but this is not a game for small players.
If you want to follow the course:
http://www.bitsonchips.com/
--- End quote ---
Prices for state of the art reticles are way above the prices for the kinds of geometries used for most analogue and mixed signal work. You still need deep pockets, though, especially if there are errors on the first pass (highly likely) that can't be fixed by changing just a metalisation layer. Defensive design approaches help a lot with this. If you put suitable spare stuff on the die, its much more likely that a metalisation fix can be used to patch in some of those spare bits to fix an error.
amyk:
--- Quote from: srce on October 15, 2018, 06:43:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: ZeroResistance on October 15, 2018, 05:24:29 pm ---Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMS
--- End quote ---
The PDKs are usually free - these will often include a standard cell library (e.g. basic AND/OR/NOT gates and Flip Flops) and basic IO cells as well, but not always.
--- End quote ---
They are free because the fabs make their profits selling ICs, and the design kits help customers to use them to make ICs.
From the price list posted above it looks like ON's 0.7u is the cheapest at the moment, only 300 euro/mm^2. So it is possible to do something for only few k$ now, instead of tens or hundreds of k$.
bson:
--- Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on October 15, 2018, 01:49:05 am ---Not really about the chipmaking process, more like what a chip is made of
https://youtu.be/FMdYuGpPicw
--- End quote ---
RB has a bunch of interesting videos, I'm surprised he doesn't have more subscribers! :-+
ZeroResistance:
--- Quote from: amyk on October 16, 2018, 02:08:51 am ---
--- Quote from: srce on October 15, 2018, 06:43:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: ZeroResistance on October 15, 2018, 05:24:29 pm ---Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMS
--- End quote ---
The PDKs are usually free - these will often include a standard cell library (e.g. basic AND/OR/NOT gates and Flip Flops) and basic IO cells as well, but not always.
--- End quote ---
They are free because the fabs make their profits selling ICs, and the design kits help customers to use them to make ICs.
From the price list posted above it looks like ON's 0.7u is the cheapest at the moment, only 300 euro/mm^2. So it is possible to do something for only few k$ now, instead of tens or hundreds of k$.
--- End quote ---
We need to remember that those prices are for untested / unpackaged chips and how to handle unpackaged chips would be another topic of discussion, hope someone puts in more info regarding this.
Plus additional info in the sheet says
OnSemi > 20 samples
and if your chip fits on 1mm^2 then you would be 20 * 300 = 6000 Euro lighter
Also another footnote given
Price = area (mm2) * price/mm2 with min. fabrication cost equivalent to 4 mm2
Now what would the last line mean?
brucehoult:
--- Quote from: ZeroResistance on October 16, 2018, 04:58:30 am ---
--- Quote from: amyk on October 16, 2018, 02:08:51 am ---
--- Quote from: srce on October 15, 2018, 06:43:53 pm ---
--- Quote from: ZeroResistance on October 15, 2018, 05:24:29 pm ---Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMS
--- End quote ---
The PDKs are usually free - these will often include a standard cell library (e.g. basic AND/OR/NOT gates and Flip Flops) and basic IO cells as well, but not always.
--- End quote ---
They are free because the fabs make their profits selling ICs, and the design kits help customers to use them to make ICs.
From the price list posted above it looks like ON's 0.7u is the cheapest at the moment, only 300 euro/mm^2. So it is possible to do something for only few k$ now, instead of tens or hundreds of k$.
--- End quote ---
We need to remember that those prices are for untested / unpackaged chips and how to handle unpackaged chips would be another topic of discussion, hope someone puts in more info regarding this.
Plus additional info in the sheet says
OnSemi > 20 samples and
Price = area (mm2) * price/mm2 with min. fabrication cost equivalent to 4 mm2
Now what would the last line mean?
--- End quote ---
It means if your chip (including pads, and I expect a mandatory added unused boundary ring) is smaller than 4 mm^2 then you'll be charge for 4 mm^2 anyway. (EUR 1200)
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