Two typical examples of multi-project wafer (MPW) designs. explains. “With the lowest fee, universities get access to only a limited amount of the available software. With the middle price category they can use the full toolset – and then with the top price category, they can also use foundry services.” Europractice has established agreements with the most popular design tool companies and therefore access to a large number of CAD tools can be provided at a reduced cost. The project also provides a Multi-Project Wafer (MPW) prototyping and packaging services (although the latter at full cost), which Hoofman says offers significant cost benefits to universities and research institutions. “Designing an integrated circuit always involves mask data preparation. The mask cost typically drives the cost of the eventual integrated circuit,” he explains. If a university wants to try out a design but are only interested in certain prototypes, then it’s much more efficient to use a multi-project wafer. “With this approach there are really multiple designs from different customers on one wafer, and then the mask cost is divided between these customers. That’s why it is cheaper to do an MPW than a full mask,” continues Dr Hoofman. “We can also include industrial partners, or partners from outside Europe, but they pay a higher price. We don’t want to exclude them, as the more partners you have, the lower the cost for each of the partners involved.” This design can then be manufactured and sent back to the university, at which point researchers can test the actual
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integrated circuit and evaluate its effectiveness. With more than 10 different foundries involved in Europractice, providing a range of technologies, research institutions have several options in terms of fabricating a design. “A university or professor can choose to do their design using a specific technology,” he says. “Then they would look at the Europractice calendar, and if the design is received by the deadline, then it will be put on a mask.” Along with the standard CMOS ASICs technologies (‘more Moore’*), the project also offers access to prototyping in ‘More than Moore’* technologies. The development of ‘more Moore’ technologies is associated with a trend towards ever smaller technology nodes, yet ‘More than Moore’ technologies are different. “‘More than Moore’ technologies are things such as MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) or silicon photonics,” he says. The most important challenge here is not to make the technology smaller, but rather to add functionality; Europractice offers access to a number of relevant technologies in this area, with Dr Hoofman pointing to Europractice partner MEMSCAP as an example. “MEMSCAP is an American processes foundry, and they offer a lot of MEMS tools technology options related to pressure sensors and accelerometers,” he explains. “They offer three unique standalone, multi-mask MEMS processes in MUMPS (R) MPW; namely PolyMUMPS, SOIMUMPS, and PiezoMUMPS.” However,
the most widely used ‘More than Moore’ offering in Europractice is silicon photonics. Silicon photonics is gaining more and more popularity in the industry as well as in the academic world. The latter aspect of demand is not only driven by telecommunications and computing research, but also more and more by sensors and life sciences.
Training Effective training is of course essential if researchers, academic staff and postgraduate students are to use the offered tools and processes to their full potential. Europractice offers training courses on design flows and methods in advanced technologies, giving students a solid grounding in the use of specific tools. “The students who take such training already have a background in integrated circuit design from their university studies, then with the training we take them more into the specific details of a certain design tool or design method,” he explains. The training programme is being extended and developed on an ongoing basis, helping to equip students with the skills they need to further explore the microelectronics field, both for their own intellectual curiosity and to develop new technologies that meet commercial needs. A further incentive to develop new circuits was provided by Europractice’s stimulation action, which aimed to encourage further development. The stimulation action covered two categories.
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