Design Support
The customer’s view is the real proof of the quality of our work. I am proud, that our technical support is constantly rated above the industry benchmarks. We have received very positive feedback and dedicate our daily work to make it easier for our customers to develop chips successfully.
Lars Bergmann, Head of Design Support of the X-FAB Group
EDA tools and partners
Process design kits
We support all major EDA vendors with feature-rich process design kits (PDKs) which contain all data to work with the digital, analog and mixed-signal design-flows in combination with our foundry data.Through our customer portal My X-FAB you have the shortest path from download to design.
We ensure interoperability
Our philosophy for the PDKs is to ensure interoperability by generating the same results irrespective of the chosen tool. This gives designers the free choice to select the best tool suite or to migrate between EDA vendors.
Pre-defined setups in My X-FAB's SpecXplorer
You will find pre-defined setups for various EDA tools based on the recommended setup by the vendors. After selecting the required modules in SpecXplorer your design kit is automatically configured.
Advanced PDK features
Analog/mixed-signal designs are becoming more complex consisting of sensors, analog and digital circuitry including RAM, ROM and NVM and feature high voltage transistors side by side with low noise amplifiers. Especially the design of complex systems for automotive, industrial and medical applications require effective tools and techniques to achieve robust designs. We support you with advanced features included in our PDK to meet design goals, to achieve good yield and product reliability.
Expert support
An important element of our design support is the direct expert to expert interaction with of you, our customer.
Technical hotline
Your first contact is our Technical Hotline, where our qualified team provides you with an answer whether you have a question concerning design kits, libraries, IPs, process specifications, or safe operating areas. Drawing from their own expertise as well as working closely with Field Application Engineers and our in-house experts, they will answer your inquiry 24 hours a day, 5 days a week.
ESD support
Developing integrated circuits which can withstand ESD (Electrostatic discharge) is a design challenge. Many of the devices we manufacture are deployed in harsh environments fulfilling safety critical sometimes life sustaining functions. To help you mastering this challenge we offer special ESD consultation and ESD Design Review as part of our design service. As ESD has to considered in all stages of a design, you can contact our ESD experts during the full development process.
Reference kits
Besides the comprehensive collection of our technical documentation and application notes on our customer portal myXFAB, we provide reference kits to enable a fast and easy adoption of state-of-the-art design flows. Our X-FAB Reference kits address focus areas like analog/mixed-signal, low power, multi voltage, or RF using real life design examples. The kits demonstrate advanced features of our PDKs and IPs and are available for all major EDA vendors (Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor) including special purpose tools from Muneda and Silicon Frontline.
X-FAB IP
Reusing proven circuit IP is essential for first-time-right designs and fast time to market product development. We offer a broad range of proven IP, used and validated in 100s of customer designs. All our IP is developed In-house by our design teams for best compatibility and support state-of-the-art implementation flows like multi-voltage domains and partial power-shutoff.
We provide dedicated I/O cell libraries for pad-limited or core-limited designs respectively, where all I/O structures have been characterized for ESD protection and latch-up resistance. The libraries contain distinct and complete input, output, bidirectional and general-purpose analog I/O cells. Special high voltage I/O libraries support voltages up to 61V and ESD level 2kV-8kV HBM.
Standard Digital I/O Libraries
- Bulk CMOS and SOI based I/O cell libraries are available for pad-limited or core-limited designs
- The I/O structure has been characterized for ESD protection and latch-up resistance
- Cell library contains distinct and complete inputs, outputs, bidirectionals, general purpose analog I/O and supply cells
Special I/O Libraries
- Latch-up robust pad cells for HV supply and HV I/O protection
- SCR based clamp circuits with high ESD robustness and low or high holding voltage for HV I/O protection
- HV I/O with reverse voltage protection
Comprehensive technology specific ESD – I/O documentation
- TLP IV Characteristics (Standard TLP, vf-TLP, LD-TLP, HMM)
- ESD LU guidelines
- IO and HV library documentation
For a quick start of your design we offer a broad spectrum of analog IP that not only allows you to focus on the core functionality of your product. To save a lot of design effort on your side and also reduce the risk of redesigns caused by non-functioning standard circuits our analog libraries consist of the full design database, e.g. for band gaps, bias cells, or voltage regulators.
IP Portal has both X-FAB and a variety of different IP suppliers that offer their IP to customers using X-FAB’s foundry processes. Start explore with IP Portal to find IPs that suited your project!
Our digital libraries are optimized to meet various challenging requirements of your mixed-signal designs. Dedicated libraries for low power, low leakage and power shut-off can be combined with each another to achieve best performance for your specific product needs.
To give you flexibility to the greatest possible extent when adding memory to your design, we provide multiple types of RAM and ROM. From our customer portal myXFAB you can run frontend compilers for various single or dual port RAM and ROM each optimized for high speed, low power or low area. For all embedded memories BIST blocks are available optionally. For RAM there is the option to add ECC IP.
Whatever your embedded NVM need is, a solution is already available in the X-FAB 180 nm and 130 nm-RF portfolios: From trimming to storage you can choose between latches, OTP’s, EEPROM, NVRAM, and FLASH. All NVM IPs are designed for Automotive standard, at the highest level of reliability and resiliency when operating in harsh conditions.
Related news
Contact
For more information, please contact us: