14 DAY TRIAL // Once again ready to move on to the next step as far as manufacturing nodes are concerned, Samsung is now reaping the benefits of its partnership with several partners, having successfully put the 20nm process to good use.
The more advanced a chip manufacturing node is, the better, more power-efficient and cheaper to manufacture the chips themselves become.
This once, Samsung made a point of integrating new device structures, local interconnects and better routing rules in the possible assets of processors and SoCs that the 20nm infrastructure can spawn.
To illustrate the capabilities of 20nm, Samsung even collaborated with ARM, Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys, to make a prototype ARM SoC test chip with the Cadence unified digital design flow and the Synopsys Galaxy Implementation Platform.
ARM provided an ARM Cortex-M0 processors, ARM Artisan prototype libraries, custom memories, GPIO and test structure IP.
Meanwhile, Cadence contributed with the unified digital flow (RTL to GDSII), while the Synopsys Galaxy Implementation Platform had various compilers, verificators, validator IP and other things to contribute.
All in all, the resources allowed for the taping out of the first test chip based on the 20nm process with High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology.
“With more functionality converged into a single device, semiconductor SoC design companies need advanced foundry services that provide comprehensive design enablement portfolios along with proven manufacturing technologies,” stated Dr. Kyu-Myung Choi, vice president of System LSI infrastructure design center, Device Solutions, Samsung Electronics.
“This is a significant milestone with regards to the design ecosystem that needs to be developed in parallel with the manufacturing process. The design methodology, tools and IPs used on this 20nm test chip bring together the most advanced technology from our design infrastructure partners together with Samsung process and design technology to solve critical design challenges so our customers can deliver their latest chips to market quickly and efficiently.”