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Open-Silicon Introduces MAX Technologies
ASIC Innovations Lower Power, Increase Performance, and Manage Process Variability
| Source: Open-Silicon
MILPITAS, CA--(Marketwire - November 12, 2008) - Open-Silicon, Inc., the leading open market
semiconductor manufacturer and provider of spec-to-silicon ASIC design
services, today announced the introduction of three new MAX technologies to
address design issues common to the 65nm and 40nm process nodes. Depending
on each customer's needs Open-Silicon will use the PowerMAX, CoreMAX, and
VariMAX technologies to build better custom silicon by designing in lower
power, increased performance and managed process variability.
"The new MAX technology provides tremendous power and performance
optimization advantages to our customers' products, regardless of the
complexity of their designs," said Dr. Satya Gupta, VP engineering and
co-founder, Open-Silicon. "By combining the ASIC industry's only
transistor-level optimization flow with techniques like back biasing, which
are new to the ASIC space, Open-Silicon can build the best possible fully
custom silicon in smaller process geometries."
About MAX Technology
CoreMAX was created to build the fastest processor cores in the ASIC world.
The CoreMAX technology comes out of the Open-Silicon acquisition of Zenasis
Technologies in 2007 and uses over two million lines of C++ software and
several patented techniques to move beyond the limitations of traditional
library-based ASIC design. Built-in CoreMAX functions include design
Boolean analysis and optimization, static timing, cell placement, route
estimation, and simultaneous optimization at the logical, physical, and
transistor levels. Based on the needs of each critical path in the design,
CoreMAX may change cells, move cells, or even create new cells on-the-fly,
performing a library-compatible layout for each new cell and characterizing
these cells for use throughout the EDA environment. The new cells offer
unique drive strengths and functionality that enable maximum device
performance.
VariMAX addresses increasing process variability. Traditional approaches
to variation management involve increased design margins and a large number
of extraction and analysis corners. These approaches struggle in
technologies like 65nm and 40nm where performance and leakage vary widely
across a population of otherwise good devices. In order to manage this,
Open-Silicon has implemented a back biasing design approach where the bulk
transistor node voltage is controlled so that fast, leaky parts are reined
in by adaptive calibration of the silicon.
PowerMAX enables design for the lowest possible power. Open-Silicon has
already completed state-of-the-art 65nm designs using power savings methods
like low-power place-and-route, voltage islands, power gating, clock
gating, and multi-Vt. PowerMAX adds to this foundation with four new
technologies: transistor level transformations, back biasing, power
recovery, and custom leakage signoff. PowerMAX's transistor level
optimization creates new standard cells on-the-fly to drive down both
dynamic and leakage power. In addition to its variability control value,
back biasing can also be employed whenever devices enter standby mode to
further throttle back leakage power and prolong battery life. Power
recovery operates late in the design phase to find timing paths with extra
timing margin and replace cells with either higher Vt or lower drive
strength equivalents. Finally, with custom leakage signoff Open-Silicon
characterizes cell library leakage throughout the temperature range and
then uses the actual design junction temperature for the leakage power
calculation. Since the leakage power doubles every 15°C, this is required
for accurate power estimation.
All three products are already silicon proven, or, as is the case with back
biasing, currently in fab. All products are available for design use
today.
About Open-Silicon
Open-Silicon, Inc. is a fabless ASIC company that was founded to set new
standards for the predictability and reliability of ASICs and enable
customers to differentiate their products through affordable custom
silicon. Open-Silicon provides leading edge ASIC design, open market IP
integration, and high quality silicon manufacturing services to customers
worldwide. Through the "Science of ASICs" initiative Open-Silicon
continues to introduce technology advantages that help customers increase
their market success. For more information, visit Open-Silicon's website
at www.open-silicon.com or call 408-240-5700.