SemiWiki – Page 717 – The Open Forum for Semiconductor Professionals

September 6, 2015June 14, 2019

Resolution Enhancement Technology – the key to Moore’s Law

The ability to extend photolithography utilizing 193i light sources to current process nodes is truly the key technical achievement that has enabled Moore’s Law to continue. The interplay between the exposure equipment, the materials – especially, resists and related coatings – and the fundamental principles of optics is complex, and also fascinating.

In the early deep submicron process nodes, “optical proximity corrections” (OPC) were made to the original mask data, to enhance the fidelity of the photolithography process – e.g., “serifs” added at shape corners to reduce line end pullback. At the 22nm process node and beyond, a detailed analysis of the entire optical system is required. The printing of the target design data requires optimization of the source illumination pattern together with the corresponding mask data – aka, “Source Mask Optimization” (SMO).

Neal Lafferty, Director of SMO Development at Mentor Graphics, was gracious enough to educate me on the recent advancements in this field. As part of the breadth of Mentor’s Calibre product family, pxSMO, pxOPC, and OPCVerify are the tools used for source and mask data generation, and final verification of “printability”. These tools are key to both initial process development and production fabrication.

During development, process integration engineers run SMO/OPC experiments on wafer test runs, to guide development of the layout design rules. The rules reflect the tradeoff between the goals of high circuit density and manufacturing yield, due to variations in both process and photolithography steps. The Design Rule Manual component of the production Process Design Kit (PDK) release is the culmination of these early experiments. Subsequent customer tapeout layer data are also analyzed using these tools, to create the production masks and corresponding illumination source patterns.

Neal indicated that the current 193i exposure equipment provides highly-programmable “pixelated” light sources, utilizing an independently-addressable multi-mirror array. The ability to propagate (plane wave) illumination with different angles provides many degrees of freedom for the pxSMO transform algorithms. The light source pattern is optimized to compensate for the diffractive elements in the overall system – e.g., the mask chrome pattern, the (thick glass) mask itself, the photoresist and coating materials, and any nonlinearities in the optical path. Light sources have definitely come a long way, from in-axis uniform intensity, to off-axis quadrupole illumination, to the current state-of-the art with programmable pixelated patterns.

To determine the quality of the SMO solution, the Mentor tools utilize “gauges” and “clips” in the layout data. A measurement gauge is a feature of the layer data where the critical dimension (CD) is a key process control parameter – e.g., a device gate length, a metal line width, a contact or a cut mask opening. The gauges are defined by the process integration engineer.

From the layout data, specific clips are selected, typically ~1-2um on a side. In practice, a design mask layer might utilize ~10-20 clips for SMO optimization. A clip might contain up to a few hundred gauges. Clips may be defined manually (painstakingly!), or auto-selected by a new feature incorporated into the Calibre toolset. Additionally, the tools provide settings that toggle whether specific gauges are to be omitted from consideration during the SMO data generation phase, to save computation time.

After the light source pattern and mask data are generated, a subsequent OPCVerify analysis will evaluate all gauges for their printability. (OPCVerify also cleans up the generated mask data, removing vertices that are immaterial to the printed image.)

The simulated exposure for each gauge after SMO is analyzed, and a quantitative calculation of the quality of the image for all gauges is made. The process integration engineer provides the set of metrics for each gauge, and the relative weight associated with each measure – e.g., the light intensity (dose), the slope of the intensity at a line edge (contrast), the depth of focus. The engineer can run multiple SMO experiments with different weighting factors on these metrics, and compare the results to select the preferred source pattern and mask data.

Neal highlighted that this layer clip + gauge analysis methodology is applicable to any layout style, whether a highly periodic array or a very asymmetric (logic-like) layout – although more gauges may be appropriate for the latter case.

The figure briefly illustrates an example of SMO results, for a layout with an array of mask data openings. The rectangle in the very center of the clip is the typical drawn layout shape. The green lines in the center of the rectangle are the gauges (in both directions), across which the simulated image result will be analyzed. The detailed, multi-edge shape around the drawn shape is the final mask data, with the corresponding illumination source pattern. The orange oval is the nominal, simulated image for the opening.

Parenthetically, designers at current process nodes are now required to exercise a lithography process checking (LPC) step prior to tapeout, using a tool such as Mentor’s LFD and an encrypted runset from the foundry’s design kit. During process integration development, the wafer run experiments on the film stacks, resists, masks, and illumination sources will require iterations with pxSMO/pxOPC and OPCVerify optimizations. The production OPCVerify step serves as the basis for the LPC runset released in the design kit, for the required pre-tapeout lithographic analysis.

Neal briefly mentioned that EUV lithography presents new challenges to SMO, due to the unique transition to reflective optics, and the unique pattern of the EUV source. He described EUV illumination as “more like points of light… discrete samples across the field… yet, the EUV mask shadowing effects are understood, and of course, the laws of optics haven’t changed.” 🙂

Indeed, there is a long history and a wealth of experience at Mentor with RET, and SMO technology in particular. Mentor will continue to provide both the fundamental computational lithography technology and the ease-of-use features to allow foundries, IDM’s, and equipment/materials providers to manage the complexity and challenges of lithography at new process nodes.

A technical article that provides additional detail on pxSMO/pxOPC/OPCVerify is available from Mentor’s web site, at this link.

-chipguy

September 5, 2015December 27, 2023

Computer Vision in Mobile SoCs and the Making of Third Processor after CPU and GPU

Computer Vision in Mobile SoCs and the Making of Third Processor after CPU and GPU
by Majeed Ahmad on 09-05-2015 at 12:00 pm
Categories: Ceva, EDA, Mobile

Qualcomm’s teaser of its upcoming Snapdragon 820 system-on-chip (SoC) was supposed to make up for the issues like overheating and bad press that haunted its predecessor Snapdragon 810. Instead, the San Diego, California–based semiconductor giant chose to show off the GPU and image processing muscle. Especially, its Spectra image processor is painting a rosy picture of the next-generation camera applications like 3D vision, augmented reality, virtual reality and deep learning.

Qualcomm once more reiterated its strategic focus on computer vision technology when it released more details of the Hexagon 680 DSP inside Snapdragon 820 at the Hot Chips conference in Cupertino, California on August 24, 2015. The Hexagon 680 is the next iteration of Qualcomm’s DSP technology that it uses to offload multimedia tasks from the CPU cores in Snapdragon chips.

Machine vision is creating new opportunities for smartphones

Qualcomm’s new DSP technology boasts heavy vector engine—that it calls Hexagon Vector eXtensions or HVX—for compute-intensive workloads in computational photography, computer vision, virtual reality and photo-realistic graphics on mobile devices. Moreover, it expands single instruction multiple data (SIMD) from 64-bit to 1,024-bit in order to carry out image processing with a wider vector capability.

Qualcomm is using three DSPs in Snapdragon 820 chip: one for image processing, one for wireless modem and one for always-on sensor listening. However, it’s the Hexagon 680 DSP-based Spectra image signal processing unit that is drawing the most headlines. It’s centered around the premise of enhanced computer vision that now aims to take smartphones and tablets to an entirely new level of imaging experience.

Why DSP Matters in Computer Vision

The vision applications have been largely relying on CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs and DSPs, but for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, programmable DSP solutions are becoming a strategic choice because they consume less power and die area on vision SoCs. The leverage comes from the fact that instruction sets in DSPs are focused on single-core performance and are tailored for specific applications like audio or image processing.

Moreover, ISAs in DSP cores are often driven by very long instruction word or VLIW, which uses multiple executions units in parallel to carry out a single instruction. And that significantly boosts optimization of specific applications like image and video processing. Next, DSPs offer support for critical features such as histograms, LUTs and sliding window filters at the ISA level.

DSP is now the third main processor in mobile SoCs along with CPU and GPU

Qualcomm’s tightening focus on next-generation camera applications with the launch of Hexagon 680 is a stark reminder that DSP engines are going to be the workhorse of computer vision and other imaging-centric apps in smartphones, tablets and wearable devices. It’s a sea change in mobile SoC design, which is the harbinger of the camera envy that consumers will most likely see in smartphones and tablets coming to the market in 2016.

And the DSP-centric image and video processing pitch is coming from a chipmaker that has the reputation of being a step ahead in the mobile semiconductors market. The mobile silicon powerhouse Qualcomm has set the benchmark for dual camera and dual sensor applications in smartphones, and it’s a testament that in the mobile SoC recipe, image processor is now positioned as the third most important processor after CPU and GPU parts.

The Other Vision DSP

Another company that has been advocating DSP-based solutions for computer vision on mobile devices is CEVA Inc. The supplier of DSP cores has recently launched the XM4 vision processor—a low-power DSP and memory subsystem IP core that has been designed from the ground up to meet heavy computing needs of image processing and computer visions applications on mobile devices.

The CEVA-XM4 is the company’s fourth-generation imaging and vision processor IP that boasts a mix of scalar and vector engines, VLIW, and SIMD functions for heavy-duty signal processing workloads. It also features a power scaling unit (PSU) that allows SoC designers to scale power according to application requirements and thus minimize the overall power consumption.

XM4 is designed for mobile and embedded vision systems

The CEVA-XM4 is a vision-optimized DSP engine that offloads the compute-intensive imaging algorithms from CPUs and GPUs so that designers of mobile devices can employ advanced algorithms and avoid compromises on image quality and battery life. The vision algorithms that XM4 processor supports include real-time 3D depth map generation and point cloud processing for 3D scanning, object and image recognition, and deep learning technologies like convolutional neural networks (CNN).

These vision algorithms will create a matrix of possibilities for the smartphones of 2016 for whom two cameras on the back and one camera on the front are going to be a norm. These phones with mega sensors and high-resolution screens will enable a new breed of features encompassing 3D vision, computational photography, visual perception and analytics. And that’s a lot of work for CPU and GPU on the application processor of a smartphone.

A DSP running at half the clock speed of CPU can achieve similar results in terms of image processing. Likewise, using GPU as a compute engine in vision processing applications can yield lower performance due to strict memory constraints. So there might be more mobile SoC makers lining up a vision processor next to CPU and GPU and make the best of the new era of computer vision on smartphones and other mobile devices.

Smartwatch – A Tough Puzzle to Crack

Smartwatch – A Tough Puzzle to Crack
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-05-2015 at 7:00 am
Categories: General, Mobile

Discounting the initial electronic or digital watch wave in 1970s which saw its sudden death sooner than expected, the recent Apple Watch event was the third attempt to invade the big watch market; the first being in 1999 and the second in 2012-13 led by Pebble. Although it’s stated that Apple sold about 3.6 million Smartwatches so far, it has not been able to create that buzz as was expected in the beginning when the Apple Watch was launched. In my view, even most of the 3.6 million watches sold could be due to impulsive and conspicuous buying behavior of consumer because it was Apple’s new product! What’s still missing? What’s going wrong?

Let me go back to the basic principles of marketing mix, the 4Ps – Product, Place, Price, and Promotion. In the case of Smartwatch, the very basic principle, the ‘Product’ itself has not been defined yet in its real sense. What does this product offer – time, phone, message, data, health monitoring, or a mix of these things but very little on its own? If it’s just time keeping and health monitoring the Smartwatch provides on its own, then who should buy it? Does that justify the price? Okay, price can be debatable. But is the ‘Place’ defined with enough clarity? Who should buy a Smartwatch, where and in what conditions? I will talk more about the ‘Place’ where I will draw more attention towards the next level of marketing strategy involving Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning a little later. Before that let’s talk about the ‘Promotion’, Smartwatch is late; already its ‘time’ has been stolen by the Smartphone. Hence, Smartwatch has to find other independent and smart strategies to promote itself; not by still remaining under the shadow of the same stealer, the Smartphone. Moreover, a Smartphone cannot be viewed as a complementary product for an Smartwatch, like gas for car, or butter and cheese for bread.

Apply the same 4P principles on Smartphone and you will find that it’s a very well defined product (more than an isolated product with multiple versatile functionalities). The other aspects of 4P fall in line very amicably with this product. Now apply these principles on a traditional mechanical watch. Again, you will find a very well defined product which runs forever without much intervention, shows you time at the drop of your hat, and defines your personal statement according to the watch you are wearing; it’s a perfect companion for those who wear watch. So, where did we go wrong in defining the Smartwatch?

Okay, let’s come back to the marketing strategy. Which is the segment targeted for Smartwatch? If it’s not the watch wearers, then is it worth the effort and ROI? Why the baselworld gets worried when repeated thrust is made by tech companies on developing a market for Smartwatch? Smartwatch cannot win back Smartphone holders but it can try winning watch wearers. Of course, if you have a good, well defined Smartwatch product, then you can also attract non-wearers of watch to wear Smartwatch. So, clearly the implicit target is the traditional watch wearer. However, the strategy has not been formulated with that target in mind; the product has not been defined for that audience. What has happened is a half cooked story; a hurried jump into conclusion that a smart engineering with data, message, apps, and some phone functions, added with a fashion statement will attract the general consumer (watch wearer and non-wearer) from the crowd. The market segment and exact target has not been thought of and the product not defined according to that. That’s where is the problem; my personal opinion. I’m open to other views from the audience.

A non-wearer of watch is anyway used to take out her Smartphone from her pocket to check several things, several times a day. So she wouldn’t mind checking the Smartphone for time and some other things that a Smartwatch also provides. A percentage of fitness enthusiasts would definitely like Smartwatch, mainly for those pulse readings for heart rate and other body functions’ monitoring which the Smartwatch provides by remaining attached to their bodies. So that’s an exclusive function Smartwatch provides. Is that the reason Fitbitremains at the top in wearable market share? In marketing terms, the Fitbit does define a health monitoring product per se. However, Smartwatch vendors’ wish is not to cater to only health monitoring or fitness segment. Otherwise why would Apple bring Apple Watch Edition? Is it not for watch-wearer?

Definitely, watch-wearer segment is the one which makes sense and should be the primary target for Smartwatch. Although the baselworld is worried, but they understand the watch-wearer psychology very well, and they also know that the kind of technology provided by Smartwatches wouldn’t be able to win the consumers addicted to exotic, fashionable, mechanical watches; so there is natural boasting by a few traditional and exotic watch vendors. Therefore, it’s important for the Smartwatch marketer to enter into the consumer psychology and embrace that. Once the watch-wearer segment is realized with an appropriate and smart product, it will be easier to bring non-wearers into the fold. So, what else, other than the fitness functions, a Smartwatch should provide? This should be carefully analyzed before jumping into the engineering and fashion aspects. I beg to differ from an article (link given at the end) on Smartwatch design at AnandTech website where the author says consumers as well as vendors are confused about Smartwatch. In my view, consumers are well aware, the vendors are confused. The vendors are not offering something valuable in their Smartwatches about which the consumers are not aware; the consumers are already getting those features elsewhere.

Before defining the engineering aspects, the product itself must be defined according to the consumer preferences. In my last article (link given at the end), I already said about the class of engineering done by Apple in its Smartwatch. But that’s not enough. Here are some of the features; I think are must for a Smartwatch. However, this is not complete; many more things can be added.

Battery Life – My reasonable estimate for a Smartwatch to work on a single charge should be at least 15 days if not a month. It may be difficult, but that’s the reality vendors have to face to make a traditional watch-wearer willingly accept a Smartwatch. It would be still better if some kind of auto recharging based on solar or piezoelectric principles can be added.

Independence – The Smartwatch must have its own identity and shouldn’t need any other complementary device for it to work properly. A longer battery life is also related to independence in a subtle way.

Always-on – While wearing the Smartwatch on one wrist, if I have to use the other hand to put it on, it defeats the purpose. Okay, smart engineering can help hear to put it on with a twist of wrist! Design an appropriate sensor.

Form-Factor – The Smartwatch must be fitting well on the wrist and should be of reasonable weight. Samsung Gear S2 with round face of 1.2” is a good idea. More smart engineering has to be done to realize other aspects of a good form factor. Not sure if chips with 10nm or below process technology can help here, if you want to cram a lot of functionality in the Smartwatch.

Material – If a Smartwatch is expected to cling to my wrist for most of the day, the casing and the band should be of good, safe, and durable material which I would feel comfortable with. The inner material will, of course, be dictated by the engineering.

Smart use-model – The Smartphone shouldn’t need my other hand to operate it most of the times. May be a speech recognition based command interface with suitable screen resolution can help. Of course, all provisions for using the watch screen as a touch keyboard should be there for a person to use it that way when needed.

Security – Of course, security is essential for any electronic device now a day from data perspective. In case of Smartwatch, if should have an in-built traceability for the device itself.

Exclusive features – The Smartwatch should have some exclusive and unique features. We talked about fitness and health tracking. The health parameters such as heart rate must be measured accurately and the measurements must be consistent with normal usage of the device. Smart engineering is needed here to place right sensors, right analytics, and right measurements in all circumstances. The other features such as mobile payment by just waving your wrist, weather display, home key and car key systems in-built in the Smartwatch, and so on can prove worthy. There can be many more.

Software – It’s an age of Apps in digital world. There should be identified watch specific apps for weather, sports, time-zones, GPS, flight information, calendar, and so on. We see AndroidWear, WatchOS, and Tizen operating systems on Smartwatches promoted by Google, Apple, and Samsung respectively. Two things here – the software needs to be versatile and there must be interoperability because a Smartwatch may need to connect with many devices.

Fashion statement – Yes, it’s a great motivator factor. In traditional watch segment the essential factor of time keeping is insignificant compared to the overwhelming fashion statement possessed by a designer watch. But that should not be confused with in case of Smartwatch. The Smartwatch has to first establish its own identity by delivering the essentials. The Apple Watch seems to have done well in fashion statement, but I guess, it has to still deliver more on essentials.

Effectively, a Smartwatch should stand apart on its own, irrespective of a Smartphone or a traditional watch, in all respects. Then only it can gain acceptability in the mass market. The companies like Pebble, Samsung, Fitbit, Apple, Garmin, and others have tried their best, but that’s not enough. They have to work towards making the Smartwatch appear like a superior piece in its own space compared to any other device in the electronic world. After Apple Watch it’s Samsung Gear S2; progressive, but let’s see where it goes!

AnandTech article is HERE
Also read: Apple Watch – A Great New Design, Needs More

Pawan Kumar Fangaria
Founder & President at www.fangarias.com

September 4, 2015

Is Silicon Valley Gridlock a Good Sign for Semiconductors?

Is Silicon Valley Gridlock a Good Sign for Semiconductors?
by Daniel Nenni on 09-04-2015 at 4:00 pm
Categories: General

Let’s face it, the semiconductor world has always revolved around Silicon Valley and it always will. After commuting to Silicon Valley from the East Bay (45 miles each way) for the past 30+ years I’m acutely aware of the traffic patterns and how they relate to the economy. With the advent of smartphones I can work or be entertained just about anywhere (waiting in line at Starbucks for example) except of course while driving which is one of the many reasons why I absolutely hate traffic!

Traffic really started getting bad in Silicon Valley during the late 1990s due to the dot-com bubble. Back then semiconductors were all about computers and computers were powering the internet explosion. After the bubble burst there was a brief traffic hiatus but the housing boom again brought gridlock to Northern California. In 2008 the housing bubble burst leaving Silicon Valley with the highest unemployment rate I have ever experienced. Traffic was also the lightest I have experienced which was a welcome change. I no longer had to leave home before the crack of dawn and return home well after dinner. Nor did I have to suffer road raging imbeciles. I drive a little tiny car so modern day SUVs look like weapons of mass destruction. My monster truck driving brother calls my car a speed bump!

An interesting side note, I have seen some very aggressive drivers heading to Starbucks but when they are in line waiting for their caffeine fix they are polite as can be! Go figure…

If you drive down the main arteries of Silicon Valley you will see thousands of new or soon to be built apartments and monstrous office buildings on the rise. As Apple finishes its 2.8-million-square-foot Space Ship Campus in Cupertino that will house more than 12,000 employees they are also leasing hundreds of thousands of square feet in Santa Clara and San Jose. FaceBook and Google are also expanding their Silicon Valley footprint and hundreds of baby unicorns are taking up residence. The unicorns I’m referring to are the companies that have billion dollar valuations based on fundraising rather than revenue. From what I read there are now more than 100 full grown unicorns so yes there is another bubble coming, absolutely.

Fortunately or unfortunately most of the bubble headcount in Silicon Valley seems to be software related versus semiconductor professionals. Are our jobs safe in the next bubble? I would say yes, much more so than the last two bubbles. During the dot-com bubble there were tens of millions of people intermittently connected to the internet. Today there are more than three billion people “always-on” the internet out of a total population of more than seven billion (less than half). In fact, last week Mark Zuckerberg announced that a record one billion people logged onto Facebook in one day. Yet out of the more than seven billion people on this planet only two billion have smartphones (less than one third) so we have plenty of semiconductor growth yet to come. Sound reasonable?

September 4, 2015

Smartphone Penetration in Bali & Gili Islands

Smartphone Penetration in Bali & Gili Islands
by Eric Esteve on 09-04-2015 at 12:00 pm
Categories: General, Mobile

Whether you travel for business purpose or to stay for holidays in one of the paradise island part of the “Lesser Sunda Islands” like Bali or the Gili Meno, you always learn about mobile phone penetration. If you stay in one of the luxury resorts, populated by rich western or Chinese people, you probably don’t learn more than when walking in an international airport, or staying at home in Europe or USA. As far as I am concerned, I was lucky enough to stay in a friend’s house in Bali. The house was embedded in a typical suburb between Denpassar (100% Indonesian) and Kuta (100% touristic). That means that when you walk 100 meters outside the house, you can buy fruits in a grocery like local people, and have an idea about their way of life…

The first time I went to Bali was 15 years ago and I was surprised to see that in any shop, from the smaller lost in the country to those located in the touristic area, the vendor was always using a pocket calculator (even for the most obvious calculation). I must say that things have changed a lot: the same people tend to use their cell phone instead of the calculator! I have seen many people in the street with a cell phone, rather the robust Nokia type that we were using in Europe in the early 2000’s than the last Apple or Samsung (or even the $100 smartphone like from Wiko or Huawei).

I said “with” on purpose, as they don’t use it that much. Why? As often, the cost is the reason. Asking for using somebody’s cell phone in an hotel to call a friend, I was told OK, but I should pay Rupias 7,000 per minute. It’s only 50 cents of $, but you have to keep in mind that you can get an excellent main course for Rupias 30,000 as a tourist… or 4 minutes call! It’s probably way too expensive when the average monthly salary is 2 Million Rupias, or $140… my marketing message to operators!

I couldn’t get a picture of the guy fishing and driving the boat with a cell-phone in hand, for obvious reasons: one hand is for fishing and the second for the boat. But I can tell you that the phone is inside the orange hermetic bag! And, by the way, we didn’t catch any fish, even a small Mackerel or white Tuna… The picture is taken around Gili Meno, a minuscule island close to Lombock, and the fisher is also running a small resort with his two brothers. It was interesting to see how useful can be a cell phone during electricity shut down: that’s the only way to listen music! From the waiter to the boss, every people in the staff had his own phone, even if they really don’t use it very often.

Just a precision about Gili Meno, this island is the country of marine turtles, and I have discovered that snorkeling with these ladies, sometimes for 10 or 12 minutes in a row, can be a real ecstasy (and I do snorkeling for about 40 years). Gili Meno habitant used to be fishermen, but they clearly enjoy a better life by working for tourism (there is no mass tourism on such a small island). Their behavior with turtles demonstrates that they are pretty cleaver and that they have understood their market segment positioning: when the turtles lay, for example at a few meters from the resort, they capture the baby turtles. The goal is to nurture the babies (see below when they change water) until they are strong enough to escape more easily from predators (it takes a few months) and to release them in the sea, during a ceremony. Turtles help the island peoples to bring tourist (and money) so the peoples help the turtles to survive!

I agree that we escape a little bit from smartphone marketing survey, but I found this story a good marketing case. Want some more insight about smartphone in Indonesia? Let’s talk about the traffic in Bali. About 95% of the vehicles are made of scooters, and that’s a good news because the 5% remaining cars and trucks are creating huge traffic jam. As usual in Asia, you can see a complete 4 people family riding one scooter, but let’s look at the simple case: two (upper class) teenagers riding a scooter, the boy drive, the girl is beside. As far as I have seen, it’s very, very fashionable for the girl to consult messages on her smartphone while the boy is driving… and to answer to these Emails.

The most important being to acting just like she was at home sitting on a chair!

There is absolutely no reason for posting this last picture… but I like it!

Eric Esteve from IPNEST –

September 4, 2015April 10, 2025

SEMATECH, Silvaco and SRAM

SEMATECH, Silvaco and SRAM
by admin on 09-04-2015 at 7:00 am
Categories: EDA

SEMATECH has been around for over 20 years, starting in Austin. Today it is in upstate New York which increasingly seems to be the area for semiconductor research with IBM (still doing research although they sold their semiconductor business to GlobalFoundries), GlobalFoundries’ own Fab 8, the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CSNE).

For a couple of years, Silvaco have been working with SEMATECH in creating an environment where advanced CMOS processes and devices can be created and optimized, all within 2D/3D modeling to help reduce the burdensome costs of manufacturing real wafers. Once a simulation methodology has been created then it can be used for design of experiments (DoE) where design variables can be changed and the outcomes examined in detail.

This collaboration is driven by the challenge of getting maximum performance from advanced designs as CMOS scaling continues to 10nm and beyond. One area of increased interest in simulation is that standard rule-based resistance and capacitance extraction may be insufficient for designs in advanced FinFET technologies. FinFETs introduce even more complexity in designs due to the 3 dimensional nature, including coupling within a single device, between devices and between the devices and the local interconnections. Physical 3D field solver based extraction on the cell-level ensures that the designer takes into account coupling effects between the FinFET device and middle-of-line interconnects.

Silvaco approaches this problem via a multi-step process, all using Silvaco’s tools:

[LIST=1]

a 6T SRAM layout is created in the Silvaco Expert layout editor as a test vehicle
the 3D structure is created via Victory Process Silvaco’s 3D Process Simulator solution capable of fast geometric structure building as well as detailed physical process modeling.
Victory Process is layout-based, meaning the 6T SRAM layout is used as an input to define help define the physical structure.
The resulting 3D structure is passed to Silvaco’s Clever, a 3D physics-based field solver. The active devices are identified and the parasitic the Rs and Cs are extracted with high accuracy, creating a new SRAM netlist which includes added parasitics
the output netlist is fed into SmartSPICE where it can be paired with compact models for the active transistors and simulated in SPICE
this creates results at the level that design engineers can analyze
rinse and repeat via DoE in Silvaco’s Virtual Wafer Fab to understand and optimize the designThe above diagram shows the layout of the 10nm bitcell. Below is a 3D visualization of the TCAD model of how the bitcell would be built up in the modeled 10nm process.
Using a design of experiments feedback approach allows study of how design choices impact cell circuit performance and allow optimization to understand and minimize impact of parasitic RCs. Furthermore, due to the direct link between the 3D structure and RC-extracted SPICE simulation, it is possible to analyze the impact of structural variation due to process or layout on performance to better understand margining requirements.

In addition to the RC extraction investigation, Silvaco has also collaborated with SEMATCH in other related areas.
- thermo-mechanical simulation of through silicon vias (TSVs)
- Detailed 3D TCAD Device simulation, modeling electrical and stress performance of 14nm FinFETs
For full details see Silvaco at at TSMC’s OIP on September 17th

September 3, 2015June 14, 2019

For high-volume manufacturing at 10 nm and below: technology and friendship

For high-volume manufacturing at 10 nm and below: technology and friendship
by Beth Martin on 09-03-2015 at 4:00 pm
Categories: EDA, Siemens EDA

The technology for 10 nm is settled, but what about 7 nm and 5 nm? Those nodes will happen with silicon-based CMOS and 193nm immersion lithography, but exactly how is still being worked out. Right now, though, the focus is on getting 10 nm chips into high-volume production. TSMC and Intel both claim to be on track for high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of 10 nm FinFET processors by 2017. You can see in the image below that it is a real “dotted-line” prediction.

Achieving HVM past 14 nm and getting to 5 nm was the topic of a panel session at this year’s SemiconWest. I talked to panelist Juan Rey, senior engineering director at Mentor Graphics, about EDA’s role in the march to the ‘Last Node Ever.’

Meaningful discussions of process nodes must include viewpoints from all niches of the semiconductor ecosystem. This panel included experts from IMEC (semi process research), Soitec (semiconductor materials), Intermolecular (materials, process, HVM), LAM (fab equipment), Applied Materials (fab equipment), and Mentor Graphics (EDA).

An early question to the panelists was about the options for improving devices. An Steegen from IMEC talked about some recent R&D areas, including SiGe and GeAs high-mobility channels, under-etching, bi-layer graphene, and vertical silicon nanowires. Those silicon nanowires are also called gate-all-around transistors, and are a likely replacement to today’s FinFETS at 7 nm and 5 nm.

Christophe Maleville of Soitec focused on FDSOI as a path to HVM for 10 nm. The materials and equipment panelists talked about atomic-level etch and deposition, and also about improvements in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) used for metrology. Being an EDA person, the materials discussions were fascinating to me, but a little out of my wheelhouse. However, I suspect I’ll be learning more about these emerging technologies, particularly the gate-all-around transistors.

The final panelist in the session was Juan Rey from Mentor Graphics, who talked about the challenges at the interface of design and manufacturing. That ever-shifting borderland is where Rey spends most of his time. While Mentor’s work is highly technical, he started with a higher-level discussion about the need for better communication through the ecosystem. He says that the iterations between foundries and their partners must happen sooner, and in smaller, faster cycles. That is, the path to HVM will be accelerated when there is tighter cooperation between EDA, IP providers, and foundries.

He also suggested that foundries need to restrict the number of partners they engage with, so they can form deeper relationships with fewer key partners. On the more technical side, Rey said that EDA companies constantly work on multiple enabling technologies without always knowing which one will work, or which one will be widely adopted. Mentor, for example, has software for directed self-assembly (DSA), EUV, multi-patterning (both SADP and LELE), etc.

Take physical verification, for instance. The chart shows the proliferation of technology for physical verification by node. Each technology was developed to address specific challenges to design and manufacturing; lithography limitations required resolution and mask enhancements, planarity and loading effects called for new fill methods, FinFETS needed whole new device and interconnect models, and so on.

Integration between tools is also important, said Rey. He used examples of how Calibre verification based on sign-off foundry decks are interfaced with all major digital place and route tools and custom design tools. These tight interfaces improve the design flow productivity, particularly for multi-patterning, by essentially dropping the full Calibre signoff capabilities into the design and edit environment. This type of tight integration between tools can make a big difference in design productivity.

For more on productivity improvements through better tool interactions, you can download a free whitepaper on STMicroelectronic’s experience using Calibre RealTime on a 14nm FDSOI design.

Another issue Rey discussed is encryption to protect foundry IP. The problem is that EDA tools need lots of information on IP to generate accurate verification results, but the foundries are reluctant to provide such sensitive IP information in rule decks. The solution, says Rey, is partial deck encryption. This makes the foundry’s sensitive IP information unreadable to humans, but perfectly clear to the EDA tools.

The take-away from these experts overall is that there *is* a clear path to HVM for 10 nm, and a somewhat more winding and ambiguous path to 5 nm. The panelists didn’t seem discouraged, but excited about figuring out the solutions to the challenges that lay ahead.

September 3, 2015

Who is Leading in the Wearables Market?

Who is Leading in the Wearables Market?
by Daniel Payne on 09-03-2015 at 12:00 pm
Categories: IoT, Mobile

My first experience with a wearable device was back in 1978 at college, it was an LED-based watch that had you push a button to read the time of day, saving battery life. Sad to say, but that electronic watch didn’t make it through the January winter at the University of Minnesota, so was promptly returned for a refund. Fast forward to today, and we see a steady introduction of wearable devices to track our steps, measure heart rate, report the time of day, and even synch with a smart phone to provide us with continuous alerts.

You may have heard about Fitbit, the wearable company that had an IPO back in June of this year, it has a market capitalization of some $6.8B which is just below the value of Synopsys and above the value of Cadence stock. Their most recent product is called the Fitbit Charge HR and it provides a step counter, heart rate monitor, caller ID and watch, all in a slender design, fitting on your wrist.

Research company International Data Corporation (IDC) follows the wearable market and just published some very interesting data about who is leading. Fitbit is the number one company in the wearable market, so I wasn’t surprised about that number in the report. What did surprise me is that there are so many players in this market that the leadership position is really open to rapid change. For the second quarter of 2015 there were 18.1 million devices sold, an increase of 232.2% from one year ago at just 5.6 million units.

Top Five Vendors
I had already heard about each of the top five vendors before, but didn’t quite know how they stacked up against each other.

[TABLE]
|-
| Vendor
| 2Q15 Shipment Volume
| 2Q15 Market Share
| 2Q14 Shipment Volume
| 2Q14 Market Share
| 2Q15/2Q14 Growth
|-
| 1. Fitbit
| style=”text-align: right” | 4.4
| style=”text-align: right” | 24.3%
| style=”text-align: right” | 1.7
| style=”text-align: right” | 30.4%
| style=”text-align: right” | 158.5%
|-
| 2. Apple
| style=”text-align: right” | 3.6
| style=”text-align: right” | 19.9%
| style=”text-align: right” | 0
| style=”text-align: right” | 0.0%
| style=”text-align: right” | %
|-
| 3. Xiaomi
| style=”text-align: right” | 3.1
| style=”text-align: right” | 17.1%
| style=”text-align: right” | 0
| style=”text-align: right” | 0.0%
| style=”text-align: right” | %
|-
| 4. Garmin
| style=”text-align: right” | 0.7
| style=”text-align: right” | 3.9%
| style=”text-align: right” | 0.5
| style=”text-align: right” | 8.9%
| style=”text-align: right” | 40.0%
|-
| 5. Samsung
| style=”text-align: right” | 0.6
| style=”text-align: right” | 3.3%
| style=”text-align: right” | 0.8
| style=”text-align: right” | 14.3%
| style=”text-align: right” | -25.0%
|-
| Others
| style=”text-align: right” | 5.7
| style=”text-align: right” | 31.5%
| style=”text-align: right” | 2.6
| style=”text-align: right” | 46.4%
| style=”text-align: right” | 119.2%
|-
| Total
| style=”text-align: right” | 18.1
| style=”text-align: right” | 100.0%
| style=”text-align: right” | 5.6
| style=”text-align: right” | 100.0%
| style=”text-align: right” | 223.2%
|-

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker, August 25, 2015

Fitbit was founded 8 years ago, and has gone through several generations of products, so it makes sense that they are the number one vendor in the wearable market.

Apple just lept onto the scene with the Apple Watch product being announced in September 2014, but started selling only in April 2015. So in just a couple of quarters the Apple Watch has rocketed to the number two spot. The installed base of Apple users have really validated the concept of a wearable that communicates with a smart phone.

At number three is our rising Chinese star Xiaomi with their Mi Band, a very low-cost step tracker that is popular in China and is now expanding into new geographies.

Garmin has been around for years with relatively high-end electronics for mapping and GPS applications, however their wearables are designed for specific uses like: step tracking, hiking, triathlete, swimming, golfing, flying and boating.

I use a Garmin Edge 520 for my bike computer, but that product doesn’t fit into the wearable category because it sits on your bike handlebars.

Samsung appears to be in big trouble here, because the wearables market is growing but their market share fell in the past year. Maybe having more products in a category isn’t as smart as having a winning product. They offer three watches (Gear S, Gear 2, Gear Live) and a fitness tracker (Gear Fit).

The Others category has a combined number greater than #1 Fitbit, and has some well-known brands in it like Pebble, Jawboneand Sony.

Summary
The wearables market is characterized by rapid growth in the triple digits, and with many vendors all vying for your wrist it is a fast-changing market. The semiconductor content and sensors in these wearable devices must be cost effective, accurate and manage power efficiently. Battery life is a huge usability issue, especially for the smart watch category. With the trend for foundries going back to power-optimize their 28 nm process node, we can expect to see continued battery life improvements in this wearable market.

Read the full press release from IDC here.

September 3, 2015

Business Models: EDA Is Software But It Used To Be Sold As Hardware

Business Models: EDA Is Software But It Used To Be Sold As Hardware
by Paul McLellan on 09-03-2015 at 7:00 am
Categories: EDA, General

Business models are really important. Just ask any internet startup company that has lots of eyeballs and is trying to work out how to monetize them. It is a lot easier to get people to use something for free, much harder to get people to pay for something especially when they don’t value it much. Different companies that look somewhat similar often have very different business models.

I was once sat on a plane next to an executive from HBO. This was in the Sex in the City and The Sopranos era. I asked him how come HBO made programs that were so much higher quality than CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox. He said that although it looked like they were in the same business, making programs for TV, in fact their business models were totally different. The big networks sold eyeballs to advertisers, the more eyeballs, the higher the price. So they wanted to make lowest common denominator programs that appealed to as wide a range of people as possible. HBO got paid by subscriber. If you subscribed to HBO for a month, then they got $3 or whatever the number was. And here is what he pointed out that I’d never thought of. They didn’t care if you liked Sex in the City as long as you liked The Sopranos enough that you were not going to drop HBO. A mostly different demographic loved Sex in the City and never watched The Sopranos. But they were not going to drop HBO because they needed their Sex in the City fix every week. So it was important to make a few really high quality programs that together covered all interests, but it was irrelevant if you liked them all. It is almost as if HBO is wasting effort if you like too many of their programs, they get paid the same if you only like one, provided you like it enough to keep signed up. I am sure today there are many people who would never drop HBO because Game of Thrones will be back for season 6. Or who love John Oliver’s show.

Once business models are set, it is very hard to change them. HBO is facing this today, wondering how to best get money from millennials who typically don’t bother with cable. If they switch to pure internet, they risk losing all those $3s from people who don’t watch stuff on the internet (or better still, who pay for HBO as part of a bundle but don’t even watch it). If they don’t, how do they reach the non-cable audience. As more an more people cut the cord (I did) then their market is moving from people who watch on Comcast to people who watch on Roku or AppleTV or their phone.

When EDA started it was in the era when there were no separate hardware and software industries. The first wave of EDA was Calma, Applicon and Computervision. They would sell you the hardware with the software already installed. For example, the Calma Graphic Design System (or GDS) was a re-badged Data General minicomputer. You paid a single price to license the hardware and the software in the same way that if you buy a digital camera you don’t pay for the software separately. Hardware was sold as an up-front purchase price and then an annual maintenance of around 15-20% of the original price. That covered the hardware and the software.

As an aside, if that GDS name seems familiar, it is indeed the same GDS as in the layout interchange format GDS II. That is actually the tape backup format from those systems dating back to the late seventies.

Four Industries that will be Transformed by GaN

Four Industries that will be Transformed by GaN
by Alex Lidow on 09-02-2015 at 4:00 pm
Categories: EDA

In a previous post we discussed a few automotive applications that will be big markets for GaN technology. But this is just a small part of the GaN story!

GaN transistors such as eGaN FETs from EPC are today available with performance 10 times better than the best commercial silicon. What happens when several devices are integrated to create asystem on a single chip? What happens when the performance of that chip is 100 times better than silicon?

In this posting we will look out 5 to 10 years and see how a transformative change in semiconductor technology is transformative to our world in almost every way.

Transforming Space
Power converters used in harsh environments, such as space, high-altitude flight, or high-reliability military applications must be resistant to damage or malfunctions caused by radiation. eGaN FETs today perform 40 times better electricallywhile being able to withstand 10 times the radiation compared with the aging Rad Hard power MOSFET. This enables entirely new architectures for satellite power and data transmission. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, has set as his mission to reduce the cost of putting objects in space by a factor of 10. With eGaN technology applied to satellites we can reduce the size of the electronics, eliminate the shielding required, and greatly improve the performance of the data communications. This eliminates solar panels, makes the entire system smaller and lighter weight, and extends the life of the satellite. A factor of two reduction in weight is within our reach with today’s technology, whereas a factor of 10 is possible when eGaN technology is used to produce entire systems on a single chip. Multiply the impact of SpaceX with eGaN technology and we will change the way we use space and accelerate the exploration (and possible colonization?) of our universe.

Transforming the Machine Interface
LiDAR uses high speed pulsed lasers to rapidly create a three dimensional image or map of a surrounding area. One of the earliest adopters of this technology was the “driverless” car. Today’s eGaN FETs are enabling new and broader applications such as 3D printing, real-time motion detection for augmented reality glasses, computers that respond to hand gestures as opposed to touch screens, and fully autonomous vehicles. As eGaN technology evolves, LiDAR can be further improved in both resolution and cost. Projects are already underway to include “3D Awareness” in our cell phones. Imagine if phones could understand the space around us. We will be able to get directions in a new, more comprehensive way. An iPhone today can provide the location of the building you desire, but with LiDAR, 3-D mapping could lead you straight to a specific office.

Transforming the Use of Electricity
Wires suck. Today, we need wires to supply power to our ever-growing collection of electrically-powered gadgets. For those gadgets that are so completely indispensable, we need to take them with us at all times, and they need batteries that must be recharged all-too-frequently. Expected in late 2015, wireless power systems using eGaN technology will begin to unload this wired burden by providing energy wirelessly to charge cell phones and tablets. By integrating thin transmission coils in the floor tiles and the walls of buildings and homes, the need for wall sockets will be eliminated altogether! This same wireless power technology can be used to charge electric vehicles when parked over a transmitting coil embedded in the floor of a garage. A project is underway to embed wireless chargers at bus stops. Eventually, in a one-minute stop, a bus can get enough charge to drive a mile to the next bus stop. This could eliminate the need for most of the heavy batteries and overhead electrical systems that burden electric buses today.

eGaN technology makes possible the efficient transmission of electricity at safe frequencies that are difficult for their silicon transistor ancestors. Taking eGaN technology to higher voltages and higher frequencies extends the wireless power transfer distance. Integrating eGaN technology into complete systems on a chip enable wireless power systems to be embedded into almost every device that consumes electricity.

Transforming Medicine
We are all getting older every day, and, as we age, we develop more opportunities for frailties and chronic health problems. Today there are major advances in fields such as implantable systems, imaging, and prosthetics that are enabled by eGaN technology.

Wireless power is already having an impact on implantable systems such as heart pumps. Beyond just artificial hearts, many other medical systems can also benefit. As Dr. Pramod Bonde of the University of Pittsburg Medical Center speculated, “[wireless power]can be leveraged to simplify sensor systems, to power medical implants and reduce electrical wiring in day-to-day care of the patients.”

But it’s not just eGaN technology in wireless power that is transforming medicine. Imaging technology is also improving by leaps and bounds! The resolution of MRI machines is being enhanced through the development of smaller and more efficient sensing coils using eGaN FETs and ICs. Diagnostic colonoscopies are about to become a thing of the past due to today’s eGaN FETs. These types of non-invasive imaging breakthroughs significantly reduce the cost of health care through early warning and non-invasive diagnostics. As we integrate entire systems on a single eGaN chip, miniaturization and image resolution improves the standard of care while medical costs come down.

eGaN Technology –Transforming the Future
In this posting, we talked about a few of the transformations that will be enabled as eGaN technology evolves. EPC is taking the 10-times gap in performance between eGaN FETs and MOSFETs and improving it to a 1000-times gap. This technology is also being applied to integrated circuits made be EPC in eGaN technology. EPC is pursing parallel paths – discrete power semiconductors and fully integrated circuits that form building blocks for multiple applications, but will ultimately evolve into complete systems-on-a-chip for very high performance, low cost, and high value-added applications like the ones discussed above.

The eGaN journey has just begun!

Also read:

GaN Technology — Contributing to Medicine in No Small Way
Four Things a New Semiconductor Technology Must Have to be Disruptive
GaN Technology for the Connected Car