Standardizing Process Design Kits: Is it Possible?

Despite extraordinary progress in electronic design automation (EDA), custom IC design tools-- whether for digital, analog, or radio-frequency (RF)--have not kept pace with the rest of the industry. The contrast between advances in digital system-on-chip (SoC) design versus transistor-level design, still mired in long and laborious design cycles, is dramatic and troubling.
Despite extraordinary progress in electronic design automation (EDA), custom IC design tools-- whether for digital, analog, or radio-frequency (RF)--have not kept pace with the rest of the industry. The contrast between advances in digital system-on-chip (SoC) design versus transistor-level design, still mired in long and laborious design cycles, is dramatic and troubling.

Presently, the elemental components for custom IC design are delivered in the form of design kits, also referred to as process design kits (PDKs) and foundry design kits (FDKs). Their basic elements include passive devices, as well as active devices (diodes, bipolar, and metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) transistors). Each device comes with multiple design views, schematic symbols, simulation models, and physical layout views commonly called parameterized cells (pcells). The device design views are intimately intertwined with the underlining semiconductor process technology and the target EDA tools, the interdependencies of which are so extensive that IC designers, EDA vendors, and IC foundries are by necessity teamed in a virtual—and currently inefficient—“three-legged race” to maintain the integrity between the design and process data. The resulting custom design methodology is not only slow and incredibly complicated, made worse since no two design kits are the same.

Lack of advancement in custom IC design is primarily due to the necessity for close coupling of process to custom design, which is hampered by the current lack of standard formats for custom design data. Secondly, the inherent inefficiencies of the custom design chain have made the benefits of intellectual property (IP) reuse, which is so economically valuable in other branches of the design process, virtually inaccessible for custom IC design.

The recently formed OpenKit Initiative (OK!) includes representatives from semiconductor, EDA, foundry, and library/IP companies. OK!'s goal is to do for custom design what was done for digital design in the eighties--define standard formats that represent information related to process technology, design tool requirements, and IC design requirements.

The establishment of standard formats will save custom IC designers, IP creators, foundries, and EDA vendors significant amounts of engineering time typically spent in the creation and verification of design kits. The adoption of standards, as simple as a common schematic symbol set or as complex as the definition of the manufacturing process design rules specified in design rule check (DRC) files, will simplify the ability to communicate essential process data, including functionality, performance, and predictability of the target process, and thereby help reduce the overall design time and speed time to volume production. It will also enable EDA vendors, computer-aided design (CAD) groups, and foundries to develop, deliver, and maintain fewer yet more consistent and robust design kits to expedite the adoption of new process technologies.

Tom Quan is the Vice President, Marketing, at Applied Wave Research, El Segundo, CA, www.appwave.com. You can contact him at tomq@appwave.com.