Pure-play foundries are offering vanilla flavor services, meaning one can buy only wafers. ASIC design, testing, packaging and supply chain services are not part of their service offering.
Large IDM players, who manage their own supply chain, seek this type of engagement because they prefer to own the supply
Tapeout is a major milestone in every ASIC project lifecycle. It means the design phase is completed and you are ready to send out the GDSII to the fab for production.
The term “tapeout” was coined in 70’s. Historically, engineered used a magnetic tape to store all the ASIC design
Update (August 2012): Our internal analysis shows GLOBALFOUNDRIES to become the second largest foundry worldwide and managed to break the 4B$ barrier. See below updated charts.
Foundry business is doing well, the semiconductor market is growing and there is a continues need for silicon component supply.
While we are aware of
MSL stands for Moisture Sensitivity Level. It represent the amount of time an IC can be exposed to ambient conditions and still be assembled on a PCB without being damaged.
When the antistatic bag is opened and the ICs are exposed to ambient conditions, the moisture in the air
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LoadBoard (LB) is a mandatory, custom made PCB, that acts as a mechanical and electrical interface between the tester (ATE) and the device under test (DUT). LoadBoard has well-defined physical dimensions and it must fit perfectly into the tester.
It is one piece of the entire ASIC Test Solution
It happened to all of us. You come to your office one morning and find a note from your manager “what will be the ASIC’s unit cost?”
Although an ASIC unit cost has a direct impact on revenues, it is typically only visited twice: before the design starts and when