IC design

With the emergence of consolidation as a potent engine of semiconductor industry growth, global mergers and acquisitions are sweeping the industry as companies look to accelerate advances across segments including data centers, AI, IoT and automotive chips.

Dr. Prakash Narain, president and CEO of Real Intent and a member of the ESD Alliance Governing Council, recently offered insights on the vexing functional verification challenges that consume a significant portion of the chip design cycle.

Throughout the current millennium, System-on-Chip (SoC) has been the gold standard for optimizing performance and cost of complete electronic systems. By incorporating practically all the phone’s digital plus analog capabilities onto a single, giant chip, the mobile phone processor serves as a near-perfect exemplar of SoC. But today’s leading integrated circuits (IC) are pushing up against the upper limit of a chip’s size which is limited by the manufacturing equipment’s optical reticle size. This has proven difficult to increase and has grown only slowly over the years. Yet market pressure continues unabated for bigger, more capable electronic systems with more integrated memory, more digital logic, and more analog/mixed signal circuitry. An emerging solution to this tension is 3D and 2.5D multi-die chip assemblies – often referred to as 3D-IC. The key technology breakthrough of 3D-IC is that it makes it possible to spread a system out over multiple, smaller chips that are then assembled close together and interconnected with high-speed, low-power interconnect technologies. By abandoning the need to integrate an entire system on a single SoC and instead allowing it to be disaggregated over multiple chips, 3D-IC enables Moore’s Law to break through the reticle size barrier, improves yield by shrinking the size of individual chips, and makes it possible to mix different process technologies optimized for each function. The Four Engines Driving Semiconductor Design The road forward is not without its challenges, however, and we are seeing design companies making significant efforts to adapt and come to grips with the following four technology and market drivers: The requirement for concurrent multiphysics analysis to ensure reliable and efficient electronic systems The blurring of the lines between silicon and system The need for open and inclusive multiphysics platforms that interoperate with the multitude of design platforms The need for, and value of, bespoke silicon for hyperscalers and system companies Blurring of Silicon and System Design The advent of 3D-IC opens up new horizons for solutions that can be implemented in silicon. But it also forces a closer integration between two distinct technology markets that have co-existed symbiotically for many decades: IC design and printed circuit board (PCB) design. These markets use different tools, different data formats, different manufacturing back-ends, operate at different computational and geometric scales, and focus on different physical concerns. Yet, 3D-ICs share many aspects of both markets: They include monolithic chips but also board-like substrates to stitch the chips together. And in between the two disciplines is packaging, a completely different domain that is requiring companies to re-imagine their design capabilities and flows, as well as their organizational structure. Open, Extensible Multiphysics Platforms The siloed isolation of chip design from PCB design and package design means that each of these markets has developed insular data structures that are ill-suited to deal with the breadth of multiphysics analysis for 3D-IC design. Many different physical disciplines, including computational fluid dynamics, mechanical stress, and electromagnetic radiation, all need to work together based on open and extensible multiphysics platforms. These platforms must embrace the modern cloud compute paradigm and enable an ecosystem by allowing individual design platforms to connect for comprehensive multiphysics analysis. Bespoke Chips Today’s market-leading companies are heavily dependent on technology for their continued success and market differentiation. Everybody from online retailers to telecommunications to social networking companies and hyperscalers are moving away from off-the-shelf solutions and turning to custom-built silicon to give them an edge. Many of these companies are seeking to gain market share by leveraging proprietary AI/ML algorithms trained on their extensive troves of market data – but this requires huge amounts of compute power and specialized chips. Access to high-quality silicon solutions is vital in today’s world and the demand is for continually more complex and powerful electronics. 3D-IC an Inflection Point in Electronic Design To be sure, 3D-IC design is at an inflection point in electronic design and presents major challenges that are realigning the electronic design industry around this new reality. For more insights on this topic from a semiconductor industry leader, please view the Keynote Address 2.5D and 3D – The Road Ahead by Vicki Mitchell, VP Engineering, Arm Central Engineering Systems Group presented at the latest Ansys IDEAS Forum. And for an EDA perspective, please view Successful 2.5D and 3D Multi-die Silicon System Design Using Synopsys’ 3DIC Compiler and Ansys’ Multiphysics Analysis from Synopsys SNUG World 2021. About John Lee John Lee is general manager and vice president of the Ansys Electronics and Semiconductor Business Unit. Lee co-founded and served as CEO of Gear Design Solutions (now Ansys), developer of the first purpose-built big data platform for integrated circuit design. He cofounded two other startups (Mojave Design and Performance Signal Integrity), which successfully exited into companies now part of Synopsys. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University.

The state of Penang, nestled along the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, needs no introduction in the global electronics manufacturing sector. Despite its diminutive stature with just over 1,000 square kilometers of land area and a 1.8 million-strong population, Penang commanded an estimated 5% of global semiconductor exports in 2019, according to data compiled from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM) and UN Comtrade. The State’s transformation, from a traditional seaport economy into the Silicon Valley of the East, began in the 1970s, when the establishment of Malaysia’s first free trade zone in the State drew key investments from eight Multinational Corporations (MNCs). These pioneering investors – Intel Corporation, Hewlett Packard (now Keysight Technologies and Agilent Technologies), Robert Bosch, AMD, Litronix (now Osram Opto Semiconductors), Hitachi (now Renesas), Clarion and National Semiconductor[1] – sparked the development of a robust ecosystem of ancillary industries, which formed a foundation for the State’s rise as a prominent, offsite manufacturing hub. Today, Penang houses more than 350 MNCs that are supported by over 3,000 manufacturing-related SMEs. As Penang flourished as a vibrant, regional E E manufacturing hub, the local talent pool steadily accumulated a wealth of business intelligence and technical experience, enabling the robust supply chain to evolve in tandem with technology megatrends. This, in turn, enabled the State to focus on pursuing investments that have propelled the industry up the value chain, away from its beginnings as a low-cost manufacturing hub. Consequently, Penang has seen a proliferation of upstream technology-related investments in high value-added functions in recent years, ranging from research and development (R D), design and knowledge-based solutions, and downstream advanced manufacturing and testing to global business service (GBS) and Centre of Excellence (CoE) activities. Penang’s growing significance in the global E E value chain is demonstrated by its steady and resilient export performance in recent years. From 2014 to 2019, the State’s E E exports grew at a compounded annual rate (CAGR) of 12% to reach RM210 billion (US$51 billion). It has emerged as a hub for professional, scientific and controlling instruments (including medical technology), with exports of these products growing at a 5-year CAGR of 15% to reach RM23 billion (US$6 billion) in 2019. E E products, alongside professional, scientific and controlling instruments, collectively contributed between 77% and 82% of Penang’s total annual exports since 2014, and accounted for 50% of Malaysia’s exports in these two segments during the period. More impressively, despite the disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic, Penang’s total exports continued to rise in 2020, growing 7% year-on-year to RM310 billion (US$75 billion), and a further 14% year-on-year in January and February 2021, driven by strong global demand for semiconductors. Shaping up as the destination of choice for advanced manufacturing investments As part of efforts to move Penang’s industry up the value chain, the State government has placed emphasis on attracting companies with strong commitments in implementing Industry 4.0 and sustainable investing. These efforts have yielded positive results, with the state having gained traction as a hub for advanced manufacturing investments. This is evidenced by the rising trend in investments per new job creation, which saw a six-fold jump from 2012 to 2020, as well as the number of global heavyweights announcing new investments as well as expansions of existing facilities in the State in 2019 and 2020. Penang attracted RM31 billion (US$7.5 billion) in approved direct manufacturing investment inflows in 2019 and 2020, 88% of which involved investments into the E E, equipment and medical technology industries. Prominent new investments included those from Lam Research, Bosch Group, Ultra Clean Holdings, Dexcom as well as Smith+Nephew. Together with planned expansions by a number of existing MNCs in Penang, these new investments, which are on track to commence operations between 2021 and 2023, are poised to bring Penang’s industry to greater heights and further integrate the State into the global value chain. Recent Notable Direct Manufacturing Investments in Penang Source: InvestPenang and respective companies Penang’s conducive business environment nurtures successful homegrown technology companies Penang’s conducive business environment has not only proven successful in attracting foreign direct investments (FDIs), but also successfully nurtured local E E success stories of locally employed engineers turned technopreneurs, who have founded and built companies that have successfully grown to become internationally renowned in their own right. These homegrown E E companies play crucial roles in the ecosystem, particularly in the areas of automated test equipment (ATE), automation, outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT) services, electronics manufacturing services (EMS), precision engineering and tooling. The past five years have also seen the emergence of young, fast-growing Penang-based companies such as Experior, Oppstar Technology and Skyechip, which provide IC design and IC test design services to MNC clients globally. Public-private partnerships cultivate Penang’s talent development roadmap The state is cognisant that the development of a robust and skilled talent pool is imperative to support the growth of strategic industries in Penang. Strong public-private partnerships with concerted efforts in supporting talent development are key to Penang’s continued success. Toward this end, the State government has backed Penang Skills Development Centre’s (PSDC) industry-led training and education efforts, which have helped train over 200,000 of workers to support the industry’s needs since 1989. The State has also coordinated collaboration for industries to provide input to local institutions of higher learning on the relevance of the institutions’ courses, and rallied the industry to support State-run scholarships (Penang Future Foundation) and STEM initiatives. Holistic initiatives to make Penang a world-class investment destination for global frontier companies The dynamics of the global value chain, especially for the technology sector, have evolved rapidly since 2018, particularly amid the complex confluence of trade protectionism, COVID-19 pandemic-driven issues and disruptive technologies. The State government believes that strong, geographically localised industry clusters could help companies mitigate the risks of supply chain disruptions, in addition to improving companies’ time-to-market at a lower cost. To further increase Penang’s attractiveness for high quality investments, the State is focusing on three key strategies: Extending its competitive edge in advanced manufacturing, further strengthening Penang’s industry clusters, which include expediting SMEs’ Industry 4.0 transformation journey, and nurturing more homegrown companies to penetrate the global supply chain Embarking on a continuous drive to develop and recruit talent to the State, as well as cultivate the younger generation’s interest in STEM Enhancing Penang’s liveability with a strong focus on making Penang a smart and green city The State government is committed to continue developing Penang in a holistic manner, with the aim of creating a vibrant business and investment destination with a robust and sustainable economy and high standard of living, creating a conducive environment to “work, live, learn, play and invest.” About InvestPenang InvestPenang is the Penang State Government’s principal agency for promotion of investment. Its objectives are to develop and sustain Penang’s economy by enhancing and continuously supporting business activities in the State through foreign and local investments, including spawning viable new growth centres. To realize its objectives, InvestPenang also runs initiatives like the SMART Penang Centre (providing assistance to SMEs), Penang CAT Centre (for talent attraction and retention) and i4.0 seed fund (a catalyst for the start-up ecosystem). For more information, contact [email protected]. InvestPenang also works closely with various industry associations, including SEMI, to promote Penang’s supply chain and E E ecosystem. InvestPenang is delighted to have collaborated with SEMI on numerous occasions since 2015 and endeavours to sustain the partnership in the years to come, including for the SEMICON SEA 2022 exposition to be held in Penang. [1] No longer present in Penang following a corporate M A exercise.

A change is underway in the manufacturing sector as the use of curvilinear shapes on photomasks grows, leading to the real possibility of curvilinear shapes in designs. It may just be the start of a revolution away from Manhattan or rectangular shapes to curvilinear shapes. Changing the physical design infrastructure to be curvilinear seems too daunting a task. Are curvilinear shapes in designs a real possibility? I turned to Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S, a member of the ESD Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community, to further explain the shape of the future. Smith: What is the difference between Manhattan and curvilinear shapes? Fujimura: Manufactured masks and wafers are all curvilinear, even if the input CAD geometries are rectilinear (shown in Figure 1). It’s always been true that nature can’t make 90-degree turns, so sharp corners were always a matter of how closely you looked. These days, at the leading-edge nodes and their required resolutions, wafers and even masks are all visibly curvilinear as you can see in the graphic on the left in Figure 2. Since the 1980s, both chip design and chip manufacturing systems have used axis-aligned rectangles, or “Manhattan” geometries, because 1) that was sufficient to design transistors and interconnect for the most part, and 2) CPU-based computer algorithms can be made much more efficient for Manhattan geometries. Curvilinear shapes can be piecewise linear polygons of some resolution, or spline-like formats that are curvilinear at any resolution, or specific curved patterns like circles and ovals. Figure 1: All shapes on masks and wafers are curvilinear, even if the input geometries are Manhattan. Source: D2S Smith: What are the benefits of curvilinear masks? Fujimura: The manufacturing side of the semiconductor community knows that the best possible process window for wafer lithography is obtained by using curvilinear correction of mask shapes instead of Manhattan shapes. There have been numerous studies on the topic over several decades. The technique to generate purely curvilinear mask shapes is known as inverse lithography technology or ILT and is an advanced form of optical proximity correction (OPC). At a February 2020 eBeam Initiative event, Micron Technology presented a study showing process window improvement up to 85% for advanced memory designs as a result of using curvilinear ILT (shown in Figure 2). Additionally, Ryan Pearman from D2S presented a study at Photomask Japan 2019 showing that it is preferable to move toward a completely curvilinear paradigm, not only because ILT is better, but because the mask manufactured will have reduced variability. Figure 2: Micron Technology explained the benefits of curvilinear mask shapes for advanced memory at the eBeam Initiative event during 2020 SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference. Source: Micron Technology Smith: If the benefits have been known for decades, why is it happening only now? Fujimura: Several things happened at the same time. Multi-beam mask writing is now available. GPU acceleration for general computing has become mainstream. And wafer process window (resilience to manufacturing variation) is increasingly a problem for the leading-edge nodes as we are in the 5nm node, going to 3nm. Curvilinear ILT is needed much more now than before, will soon be needed for EUV lithography too, and is now possible because of multi-beam mask writing and GPU acceleration. Smith: Curvilinear mask shapes enable curvilinear design shapes too? Fujimura: Adoption of curvilinear mask shapes is the first step in targeting curvilinear shapes on wafers. Without curvilinear masks, it is difficult to target and reliably manufacture curvilinear designs. Curvilinear ILT works in the pixel-space to output the desired mask shape to maximize the process window for wafer lithography. A side effect of curvilinear ILT is that it can also take curvilinear targets as input. ILT, most likely GPU-accelerated ILT, works with rasterized input data, so the ILT algorithm itself is not affected even in runtime by having any amount of curvilinear design data. The resulting mask shapes are written in multi-beam mask writers, which write pixels with doses. They too will write curvilinear masks at the same speed as Manhattan masks. Suddenly now, curvilinear designs can be handled by chip manufacturing equally well for the first time in about 30 years. Smith: But curvilinear designs would be hard, right? There are a lot of tools that depend on the Manhattan assumption. Fujimura: Yes, you’re right. We’re not going to suddenly see chips that have curvilinear routing all over the place, or curvilinear intra-connect in standard cells or memory cells. The entire physical design infrastructure that includes place and route, timing, custom layout, parasitic extraction and design rule checking moving to curvilinear design all at once is extremely unlikely. Could portions of these problems be tackled for specific cases over time as “hot spot” solutions? With GPU-accelerated SPICE being available now, as an example, if GPU acceleration is adopted for design, the same transformation that happened in manufacturing can (gradually) happen in design too. The key question is whether it’s worth the trouble. Smith: Is it worth the trouble? Fujimura: I don’t know if it’s worth the trouble for the entire infrastructure. For hot spots, “hot” for various reasons, there are certainly benefits. Jogging a 32-bit bus by one grid is certainly much more economical space-wise with curvilinear shapes. Inside standard cells or memory cells, there are certain types of features that pack better with curvilinear designs. In general, interconnect is the limiter to chip size of course, but there are always critical areas that could use help to shrink. There are manufacturability benefits as well. In general, when something changes so drastically as this for the first time in 30 years, there’s bound to be some innovation that takes advantage of the discontinuity. Let’s see what the combined capitalistic power of the entire community might be able to come up with. The first thing is to let everyone know that curvilinear designs will be manufacturable today. Hear insights from other leading electronic system design industry CEOs at the SEMI ESD Alliance CEO Outlook on May 18, 2021, 2:00pm-3:00pm PDT. Panelists will discuss the state of the industry along with their views of the outlook for the coming years. Registration is free for SEMI members. About Bob Smith Robert (Bob) Smith is executive director of the ESD Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community. He is responsible for the management and operations of the ESD Alliance, an international association of companies providing goods and services throughout the semiconductor design ecosystem.