1 mm^2 of chip area can give you a lot of stuff though. Often people get limited by IO area - if you bond, you can only fit so much rows of bond pads on your chip.
1 mm^2 of chip area can give you a lot of stuff though. Often people get limited by IO area - if you bond, you can only fit so much rows of bond pads on your chip.See the sot23-6 PICs for an example. I don't think the die of those are larger than 1mm^2.
1 mm^2 of chip area can give you a lot of stuff though. Often people get limited by IO area - if you bond, you can only fit so much rows of bond pads on your chip.See the sot23-6 PICs for an example. I don't think the die of those are larger than 1mm^2.Just tried X-raying a 10F200 and 10F322 - unfortunately the die wasn't visible through the leadframe, but estimating from where the bond pads were, I'd guess 2-3mm^2
I'm pretty sure the 10F322 uses a lower core voltage internally - there is an internal regulator "which provides operation above 3.6v" according to the datasheet
I hope the learned and experienced folks over here would shed some light on the chip making process, I mean more so with if we want to get chips made what is the whole pipeline associated with it?
I have a few questions and hope the learned folks address it
1. If I have a schematic that consists a op-amp amplifier and say a mosfet driver would this finally be flattened to transistors at the lowest level.
Will the same be applicable for digital circuits?
2. Do I have to select a process node like 22nm etc.. or does the foundry decide that?
3. If I have tested by circuit using a specific op-amp from TI and mosfet driver from Fairchild, how do I ensure that he same spec gets transferred to the final flattened transistors?
4. What tools are required for creating and sending the designs to mask maker and foundry?
5. What are the costs and MOQ involved in the whole process?
6. I have heard of companies like MOSIS / Europractice who work with low volumes. Do these companies handle the whole process from mask making and dealing with the foundry on their own. Does any of you have any experience in dealing with these companies?
We use MOSIS, and a university Cadence license. We used to use the AMI (now ON Semi) C5 process, a 350 nm 5V process. We just did our first chip with the Austria Semi (AMS) fab. Their design kit is WAY better than the AMI/ON Semi kit. Minimum order is 40 parts (untested) and you can order more in 40-part increments. Our chip was fairly large, about 5 x 7 mm, and the cost for 40 parts would run some $28K US dollars, unpackaged. They usually charge something like $7500 for packaging.
How much time does Mosis take to send you back the chips, once you send them the design files?
How do you handle the unpackaged chips, do they need special care? do you need to pour epoxy on them before testing them? Do they come with pads to solder on the PCB?
How does the software help you in designing the circuit, does it have high level components like op-amps, adc's etc. and them during synthesis these blocks get flattened to transistors?
Some design kits have a lot of stock modules like op-amps included, some do NOT. You have to get the specific kit to know what will be included.
Otherwise, there are some generic circuits like op-amps that you might be able to download from people. Well, there is no synthesis for analog parts, that's why each transistor needs to be "carved" to meet your needs. So, the modules are just a bunch of transistors with dimensions included in them.
Jon
Some design kits have a lot of stock modules like op-amps included, some do NOT. You have to get the specific kit to know what will be included.
Otherwise, there are some generic circuits like op-amps that you might be able to download from people. Well, there is no synthesis for analog parts, that's why each transistor needs to be "carved" to meet your needs. So, the modules are just a bunch of transistors with dimensions included in them.
JonThanks for the info,
Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMS
Its interesting to hear that each transistor in an analog circuit needs to be manually crafted. Your would need a quite a big team to make a large circuit wouldn't it?
Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMS
Its interesting to hear that each transistor in an analog circuit needs to be manually crafted.
Your would need a quite a big team to make a large circuit wouldn't it?
Some design kits have a lot of stock modules like op-amps included, some do NOT. You have to get the specific kit to know what will be included.
Otherwise, there are some generic circuits like op-amps that you might be able to download from people. Well, there is no synthesis for analog parts, that's why each transistor needs to be "carved" to meet your needs. So, the modules are just a bunch of transistors with dimensions included in them.
JonThanks for the info,
Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMS
Its interesting to hear that each transistor in an analog circuit needs to be manually crafted. Your would need a quite a big team to make a large circuit wouldn't it?Unless you can find a canned analogue solution that exactly suits your needs, licensable in a reasonable manner, tailored for the exact process you will use, expect your analogue development to be fairly expensive and protracted.
Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMS
Some design kits have a lot of stock modules like op-amps included, some do NOT. You have to get the specific kit to know what will be included.
Otherwise, there are some generic circuits like op-amps that you might be able to download from people. Well, there is no synthesis for analog parts, that's why each transistor needs to be "carved" to meet your needs. So, the modules are just a bunch of transistors with dimensions included in them.
JonThanks for the info,
Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMS
Its interesting to hear that each transistor in an analog circuit needs to be manually crafted. Your would need a quite a big team to make a large circuit wouldn't it?
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 $300k/piece for state of the art tech.
Don't know what your company like to invest but this is not a game for small players.
If you want to follow the course:
http://www.bitsonchips.com/
Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMSThe PDKs are usually free - these will often include a standard cell library (e.g. basic AND/OR/NOT gates and Flip Flops) and basic IO cells as well, but not always.
Not really about the chipmaking process, more like what a chip is made of
https://youtu.be/FMdYuGpPicw
Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMSThe PDKs are usually free - these will often include a standard cell library (e.g. basic AND/OR/NOT gates and Flip Flops) and basic IO cells as well, but not always.They are free because the fabs make their profits selling ICs, and the design kits help customers to use them to make ICs.
From the price list posted above it looks like ON's 0.7u is the cheapest at the moment, only 300 euro/mm^2. So it is possible to do something for only few k$ now, instead of tens or hundreds of k$.
Do these design kits need to be purchased from the foundry? eg. AMSThe PDKs are usually free - these will often include a standard cell library (e.g. basic AND/OR/NOT gates and Flip Flops) and basic IO cells as well, but not always.They are free because the fabs make their profits selling ICs, and the design kits help customers to use them to make ICs.
From the price list posted above it looks like ON's 0.7u is the cheapest at the moment, only 300 euro/mm^2. So it is possible to do something for only few k$ now, instead of tens or hundreds of k$.
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?
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.
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)
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)So If my chip fits in 1mm2 and I'm opting for an unpackaged chip would they still charge me for 4mm^2 per chip and that would mean 4 * 300 Eur = Eur 1200 per chip.
and then they require at least 20 samples to be taken so that would be 20 * 1200 = Eur 24000 for an order.
Doesn't the price range sound too heavy for a university or a research setting?
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.So what is the terminology is a reticle = a mask?
So what is the terminology is a reticle = a mask?