IMEC,
Europe's leading independent nanoelectronics research institute, today
announced that QUALCOMM, a leading developer and
innovator of advanced wireless technologies and mobile data solutions,
has joined IMEC's technology-aware design program (TAD). IMEC and
QUALCOMM will be collaborating on innovative circuit and system design
methodologies.
Due to the increased variability observed in aggressively
scaled devices and interconnects, use of innovative circuit and system
design methodologies become increasingly necessary. IMEC has set up the
Technology-Aware Design (TAD) program to develop design solutions that
address these (sub-)45nm scaling challenges.
The TAD R&D program is focused on development of
advanced analysis techniques that model process variability to enable
designers to optimize the entire system design for energy and yield.
This program will develop a methodology that propagates variability
(and reliability) data from technology level to device and circuit
level and all the way up to system architecture level. The ultimate
goal is to enable manufacturing-aware sign-off of predicted process
variability at system design level. The methodology will be built on
top of commercial design tools and flows.
"We are very pleased that QUALCOMM acknowledges the strength
of our TAD program. This proves the value of our solution which starts
at an earlier stage in the design flow than is being offered today by
design for manufacturing solutions," said Rudy Lauwereins, Vice
President Nomadic Embedded Systems at IMEC.
"As a part of our 'Integrated Fabless Manufacturing' business
model, we are continually working to deliver the highest functionality
at the best cost structure with our products," said Behrooz Abdi,
senior vice president and general manager for QUALCOMM CDMA
Technologies. "We are pleased to be a part of IMEC's TAD program,
collaborating on next-generation design flows and ultimately optimizing
results."
The TAD program is an industrial affiliation program that is
part of IMEC's recently launched Apollo research program. Apollo is the
successor of IMEC's M4 (multi-mode multimedia) program and tackles the
major technological challenges for ubiquitous embedded systems that
will hit the market in 2011 and beyond.