Sofics’ ESD Innovations Power AI and Radiation-Hardened Breakthroughs on TSMC Platforms

In the fast-evolving semiconductor landscape, electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection is pivotal for ensuring chip reliability amid shrinking nodes and extreme applications. Sofics, a Belgian IP provider specializing in ESD solutions for ICs, has cemented its leadership through strategic collaborations showcased at TSMC’s 2025 Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum. By delivering Power-Performance-Area optimized ESD IP across TSMC nodes from 250nm to 2nm, Sofics enables innovations in AI infrastructure and harsh-environment electronics.

A prime example is Sofics’ partnership with Celestial AI, tackling AI’s “memory wall” bottleneck. As AI models explode in size—410x every two years for Transformers—compute FLOPS have scaled 60,000x over 20 years, but DRAM bandwidth lags at 100x and interconnects at 30x, wasting cycles on data movement. Celestial AI’s Photonic Fabric™ revolutionizes this with optical interconnects, delivering data directly to compute points for superior bandwidth density, low latency, and efficiency. Traditional optics demand DSPs and re-timers, inflating power and latency, but Photonic Fabric uses linear-drive optics, eliminating DSPs via high-SNR modulators and grating couplers.

Sofics customized ESD IP for TSMC’s 5nm process, proven in production, to protect Photonic Fabric’s sensitive interfaces. Tx/Rx circuits operate at ~1V with <20fF parasitic capacitance for 50-100Gbps signals, ensuring signal integrity while fitting dense packaging. ESD ratings hit 50V CDM with <100nA leakage, supporting thin-oxide circuits without GPIO cells. Power clamps handle non-standard voltages (1.2V-3.3V) in small areas, vital for EIC-PIC integration. This collaboration, highlighted at OIP, breaks bandwidth barriers, enabling multi-rack AI scaling. Celestial AI’s August 2025 Photonic Fabric Module, a TSMC 5nm MCM with PCIe 6/CXL 3.1, exemplifies this, backed by $255M funding.

Equally groundbreaking is Sofics’ alliance with Magics Technologies, enabling radiation-hardened (rad-hard) ICs for nuclear, space, aerospace, and medical sectors. Demand surges for rad-hard electronics amid space exploration and nuclear fusion research like ITER, where ICs must endure >1MGy TID and >62.5 MeV·cm²/mg SEE without malfunction. Magics, a Belgian firm with 10+ years in rad-hard-by-design, offers chips like wideband PLLs (1MHz-3GHz, -99dBc/Hz phase noise) and series for motion, imaging, time, power, and AI processing.

Sofics provides rad-hard ESD clamps for Magics’ TSMC CMOS designs, supporting voltages like 1.2V/3.3V with >2kV HBM, <20nA leakage, and <1700um² area. Key features include cold-spare interfaces (latch-up immune, SEE-insensitive up to 80MeV·cm²/mg) and stacked thin-oxide devices for 1.2V GPIOs on 28nm, bypassing thick-oxide limitations. This 15-year TSMC-Sofics tie, via IP & DCA Alliances, ensures early access and quality. Magics’ €5.7M funding in April 2025 accelerates commercialization.

Bottom line: These partnerships underscore TSMC’s ecosystem strength, with Sofics supporting 90+ customers in AI/datacenters (40+ projects) and space (e.g., Mars rover, CERN). By optimizing ESD for photonics and rad-hard apps, Sofics drives innovation, from hyperscale AI to fusion reactors, proving ESD IP’s role in overcoming physical limits.

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