Sanan IC Selects Mentor Graphics tools to verify GaAs chips
Mentor Graphics has announced that the Chinese company Xiamen San'an IC has selected the Calibre nmDRC and Calibre nmLVS products as its golden signoff physical verification solution for GaAs ICs used in mobile and other wireless applications.
San'an IC is located in the Xiamen Torch High-tech Industrial Development Zone, with a total investment of three billion yuan. The company is planning to build new production lines for GaAs and GaN epitaxial wafers, as well as those for GaAs high-speed semiconductor chips and GaN high-power semiconductor chips targeting microelectronic devices for wireless communication.
Once it starts volume production, the company will become the first fab in China to combine large-scale R&D and manufacturing capabilities for compound semiconductor chips.
Designs are growing 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," said Honda Huang, design support and 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."
"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," said Shu-Wen Chang, director of Calibre Foundry Programs at Mentor Graphics.
