Low Cost Prototypes
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How to reduce the cost and risk of your IC design
Many projects are simply not viable or too risky if you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for mask tooling - especially if there are iterations.
A low cost IC prototyping service
Sapphicon offers a flexible low cost IC prototyping service to reduce the risk and cost of getting into production.
You receive a complete 150 mm (6 inch) wafer dedicated exclusively to your design - NOT shared with other users. From there your design can ramp up to full production semiconductor fabrication using our wafer foundry service.
There are no imposed deadlines – you submit your design when you are ready.
Some of the benefits of our Prototype Service are:
Low Price
Overcomes the prohibitive cost of mask tooling.
High Performance
Silicon-on-Sapphire CMOS semiconductor process technology allows designs with lower power, higher frequency and lower noise specs compared to traditional bulk CMOS processes.
Personalized
No longer do you have to consider other users when you place an order. The entire wafer is dedicated to your design.
Priority
Since the wafer is not shared with others, processing can begin when you are ready. There are no hard tape-out deadlines.
Production
In many instances the quantity of devices supplied is sufficient for an initial production run or will totally fulfil the low volume demand. For example, an initial production run may yield 500 - 2,000 chips depending on chip size.
Compared to Multi-Project Wafers
In the past, designers used Multi-Project Wafers to prototype their designs by sharing mask tooling and wafers with other customers. Sapphicon provided this service for a number of years but has replaced it with this new approach.
Because the maximum field size is a generous 8.26 x 4.16mm, you may wish to share a prototype run with other colleagues. Alternately, multiple copies of the same chip can be put in the field, thus yielding more chips per wafer.
The following table compares Sapphicon's Prototype Service and Multi-Project wafer techniques.
|
Sapphicon Prototype Service |
Multi-Project Wafer |
|
þ Wafers dedicated to each user, but also cater for multiple designs on same wafer. |
ý Must share wafer with other users |
|
þ Potentially thousands of devices per wafer |
ý Very small quantity of devices produced. |
|
þ Much lower die cost |
ý High die cost |
|
þ Wafers can be run whenever required |
ý Pressure to meet MPW schedules |
|
þ Flexible schedules so you have more time to finalise design |
ý Need to rush – therefore potential for errors |
|
þ Shorter respin times |
ý Need to wait for next run for respin |
|
þ Able to do small production runs |
ý Not able to consider production runs |
|
þ Production Test tooling can be developed with prototype devices |
ý Cannot use test tooling for production devices |
|
þ No possibility of IP leakage because wafers are dedicated to each customer |
ý Possibility of IP leakage through multiple customer devices on same wafer |
|
þ Each customer may have multiple designs per wafer |
þ Each customer may have multiple designs per wafer |
Prototyping Process flow
• Sapphicon provides a process design kit for the SoS process.
• Customer carries out the chip design or uses Sapphicon supplied design services.
• GDSII layout data is supplied to Sapphicon for final design rule checking and mask fabrication.
• Sapphicon prepares mask data and sources the mask tooling.
• Typically, two wafers are produced but additional wafers can be purchased.
• Devices are supplied either as complete unsawn, wafers or packaged in a variety of prototype packages. Wafers are tested electrically. No functional verification is carried out.
Specifications
|
Process Technologies
|
0.5µm or 0.25µm Silicon-on-Sapphire
|
|
Wafer size
|
150mm (6 inch) |
|
Max Field Sizes
|
0.5 µm: 8.26 x 4.16 mm Area = 34.36 mm2 0.25 µm: 8.26 x 3.86 mm Area = 31.88 mm2
|
|
Approx. Fields per wafer
|
306 |
The Low Cost Prototype service is suitable for:
- Universities
- Research Institutions
- Defence and Aerospace companies
- Low volume applications
- Producing trial samples prior to high volume ramp-up