WILSONVILLE, Ore., June 3, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Following the announcement by Samsung Electronics and GLOBALFOUNDRIES of a strategic collaboration to deliver multi-sourced 14nm FinFET manufacturing, Mentor Graphics Corp. (NASDAQ: MENT) today revealed that customers will be able to use the same Calibre® decks for signoff verification of IC designs targeting either Samsung or GLOBALFOUNDRIES fab lines. The commonality extends to Design for Manufacturing (DFM) scoring that helps customers ensure that their designs are fully optimized to best leverage the advanced 14nm FinFET manufacturing processes. The Manufacturing Analysis and Scoring (MAS) deck prioritizes different DFM effects and makes recommendations on how to modify the design so that these effects can be minimized.
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Sign-off enabling for 14nm FinFET includes decks for design rule checking with double patterning, layout vs. schematic checking, pattern matching-based verification, litho friendly design, and design for manufacturing with advanced fill. Including a DFM scoring deck as part of the sign-off suite for 14nm is an industry first that helps ensure a consistent signoff environment. It is a key factor in the strategy to give customers the assurance of supply that can only come from true design compatibility at multiple sources across the globe.
Developed by Samsung and licensed to GLOBALFOUNDRIES, the 14nm FinFET process is optimized for high-volume, power-efficient system-on-chip (SoC) designs. It provides the benefits of three-dimensional, fully depleted FinFET transistors to overcome the limitations of planar transistor technology, enabling up to 20 percent higher speed, 35 percent less power and 15 percent area scaling over 20nm planar technology.
"We use the Calibre platform as the reference tool for our design rule manual (DRM) verification, so the Calibre decks are the first ones available to our customers," said Dr. Shawn Han, vice president of foundry marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Since Calibre is one of the leading signoff tools for our major customers, we will provide a high confidence that their 14nm FinFET designs are ready for manufacturing at any of the fabs within the Samsung-GLOBALFOUNDRIES global capacity footprint."
The Calibre platform creates decomposed double patterning (DP) layouts that are compliant with all of Samsung's 14nm lithography requirements and tuned to the Samsung mask synthesis and OPC process, which is also provided by Mentor at 14nm. It provides designers with rapid feedback on complex design rules for FinFETs via Calibre Pattern Matching, and specific coaching on elimination of DFM litho errors to make fixing violations faster and more accurate via the Calibre LFD™ product. Calibre tools for LVS and extraction have been calibrated to ensure accurate device and parasitic models for Samsung FinFETs. Moreover, Calibre SmartFill can achieve planarity while minimizing timing issue by intelligently placing fill structures.
"We're extremely happy to play a role in this new multi-source collaboration, which helps fabless semiconductor companies access FinFET technology and enjoy first-time silicon success and assurance of supply," said Joseph Sawicki, vice president and general manager of the Design to Silicon division at Mentor Graphics. "The openness of the Calibre platform and our intensive rule deck support for the latest technologies at Samsung gives fabless customers greater choice and flexibility, helping them to maintain leadership in their target device markets."
To learn more about the collaboration between Mentor Graphics and Samsung, please come to the Samsung Booth at the Design Automation Conference in San Francisco, June 2-4. Please see the Mentor and Samsung web sites (http://www.samsung.com/us/DAC2014/ ) for specific dates and times.
