Date: 21/03/2012

Mentor Graphics helps GlobalFoundries in improving design yield

Mentor Graphics has announced that a new flow developed for GLOBALFOUNDRIES by the Mentor Consulting Division (MCD) using the Calibre suite of tools has demonstrated the ability to improve incoming design yield. A silicon experiment performed by GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Mentor resulted in a significant yield increase on a test chip after the integrated flow made automatic design-for-manufacturing (DFM) improvements using multiple Calibre tools for analysis and direct modification to the GDS layout database, claims Mentor.

"We are extremely pleased with the work that MCD has done to engineer a flow customized for GLOBALFOUNDRIES that helps us easily and quickly make DFM improvements to our customers' designs, which will boost yield without impacting performance or introducing DRC errors," said Luigi Capodieci, director of DFM/CAD and R&D fellow at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. "We also like that the flow is highly modular and scalable, which allows us to easily move it to new processes and to extend it to address additional DFM issues as we uncover new design-based yield limiters."

"MCD is all about helping Mentor customers get the maximum benefit from our technologies," said Paul Hofstadler, vice president and general manager of Mentor's worldwide consulting division. "Our model is to partner closely with our customers and translate their unique requirements into an operational and scalable solution. These solutions are constructed to allow our customers to autonomously extend and improve the solution as their technology evolves. The GLOBALFOUNDRIES Yield Improvement flow is a great example of this philosophy brought to reality in a sophisticated production environment."