Electronic hardware and software design solutions provider Mentor Graphics Corp of Wilsonville, OR, USA says that Xiamen San'an Integrated Circuit Co Ltd (San'an IC) of Xiamen Torch High-tech Industrial Development Zone, China has selected its Calibre nmDRC and Calibre nmLVS products as its golden signoff physical verification solution for gallium arsenide (GaAs) ICs used in mobile and other wireless applications.
With a total investment of 3bn yuan on a planned area of 281 acres, San'an IC is one of the Fujian Major Industrial Projects 2014-2018 and Xiamen Key Projects 2015 (and an emerging industry of strategic importance with government support). San'an IC is building new production lines for gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) wafer epitaxy, as well as for the fabrication of GaAs high-speed chips and gallium nitride (GaN) high-power chips, targeting microelectronic devices for wireless communications. Pilot production was scheduled to begin by the end of this year. San'an IC reckons that it will, upon volume production, become the first fab in China to combine large-scale R&D and manufacturing capabilities for compound semiconductor chips.
As part of its foundry offering, San'an IC will provide the Calibre design rule decks to its customers to help ensure that their designs are error-free and meet all foundry requirements before submitting them to San'an IC for manufacturing.
Mentor Graphics says that designs are becoming much more complex at all IC nodes as designers address new requirements such as low power, more operational modes, more protocols, redundancy and security. As a result, designers need more sophisticated tools that can handle complex requirements and still maintain fast turnaround.
"With radio frequency (RF) and sensor applications expanding rapidly, we need a single verification flow that can handle multiple technologies and process nodes," comments Honda Huang, Design Support & Marketing Office director at San'an IC. "The Calibre platform gives us that flexibility -it works seamlessly with our RF design tools, and supports effective communication with our clients. The Calibre nmDRC and nmLVS products allow us to easily implement complex rules for RF design with very efficient commands and features like equation-based DRC that significantly reduce our coding effort," he adds.
"San'an IC's adoption of Calibre for advanced GaAs ICs used in RF applications is part of a growing worldwide trend to use the most advanced Calibre technologies for larger-feature-size applications," says Shu-Wen Chang, director of Calibre Foundry Programs at Mentor Graphics.
