News and New Products

Data-exchange standard links IC design and manufacturing

By Jeff Berman, News Editor -- EDN, 4/14/2005

RosettaNet, an e-business standards consortium, this week introduced a new standard, dubbed Partner Interface Process 7C7 (PIP 7C7), that provides semiconductor vendors with a way to exchange relevant chip-manufacturing data for engineering design and manufacturing processes.

"The purpose of PIP 7C7 is to standardize the semiconductor manufacturing test-data-exchange process by defining a common vocabulary for transmission of test data for process-control monitor, wafer sort, and final test," said Karen Cox, senior director of the program office at RosettaNet Standards Management, in an e-mail.

Along with defining a common test vocabulary for transmitting test data, the standard removes manual processing from the relationships among semiconductor fabricators, fabless semiconductor companies, and related service providers by providing a standard data-exchange protocol based on XML (extensible markup language) schemas, Cox said.

The use of XML allows test data generated by semiconductor fabricators to be transmitted directly into the engineering databases of the IC designers. "XML, combined with FTP/SSL [file transfer protocol/secure sockets layer] connections, provides a platform that can not only automatically transfer data in a standard format but also negotiate and reconcile otherwise faulty data transfers," Cox said.

PIP 7C7 creates information-exchange and processing efficiencies by using inexpensive Internet technologies and provides real-time or periodic data transfers closely tied to semiconductor-fabrication processes, Cox added. The standard also improves supply-chain efficiency and speeds time-to-market, she said.

IBM's Systems and Technology Group spearheaded a team that worked on the standard's design and pilot implementation. Contributing companies include TSMC, Freescale Semiconductor, Intel, Texas Instruments, NEC, National Semiconductor, Agere Systems, Fujitsu, and STMicroelectronics, among others.

Engineers can view and download RosettaNet's PIP 7C7 standard at www.rosettanet.org/pipdirectory.