Synopsys releases design-to-mask data processing tool for TSMC’s advanced process nodes

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 11/13/2007

To reduce data communication overhead and turnaround time between its Proteus optical proximity correction (OPC) and CATS mask data preparation (MDP) software, Mountain View, Calif.-based semiconductor design software supplier Synopsys Inc. today unveiled its Proteus-CATS data eXchange (PCX) scalable parallel interface technology.

At the same time, Synopsys noted that the world’s leading semiconductor foundry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) co-developed and has implemented PCX to reduce design-to-mask cycle-time for its advanced process technologies.

TSMC says its in-house mask services can be further enhanced by shortening the mask making cycle time, which it believes will be difficult for the merchant maskshops to match.

PCX was developed for both the GDS and OASIS library data formats, and is capable of processing hundreds of gigabytes of post-OPC data with almost zero MDP input overhead, Synopsys said.  The technology includes user-defined, scheduling-based, workload management options for data processing optimization in order to help ensure that data integrity is maintained during the OPC to MDP transfer.

Wolfgang Fichtner, senior VP and general manager of Synopsys’ silicon engineering group reminded in a statement, “Minimizing data I/O and providing an integrated OPC and mask data preparation solution plays an increasingly critical role in reducing the total cycle time for mask synthesis and mask data preparation.”

Further, as process geometries continue to shrink, the resulting increases in design complexity and chip pattern density have fueled a data explosion for advanced semiconductor designs, which can lengthen both product development cycles and overall time to market with mask synthesis (OPC, RET) and MDP being two areas in the production flow most adversely affected.

Kuo Wu, deputy director of design service marketing at TSMC added that Synopsys PCX is the result of a technical collaboration with TSMC to provide a streamlined architecture and data transfer from OPC to MDP, and TSMC has seen encouraging results integrating PCX technology with the TSMC advanced technology production flow, which should reduce overall production turnaround time to directly benefit our customers.

PCX is supported on the Proteus 2006.09 and CATS 2006.09 software versions. PCX technology is compatible with the x86-64 with RHEL or SLES platforms in multi-threaded and distributed processing modes.