Analog/Mixed Signal IP DFx from a Foundry perspective

Foundries are enabling fabless chip design companies to meet market demand of highly integrated devices for mobile applications, FPGAs and advanced network infrastructure products. Foundries makes significant investments in the development of advanced technology nodes to ensure future customer demands are met. This implies that fab utilization is of high importance. The importance of DFx to accelerate technology bring up and to enable fast customer volume ramp up cannot be argued. However, how much DFx should be included in a foundry IP portfolio can be debated. The foundry DFT team work as intermediary between customers and IP providers. Some DFT methodologies used to identify design and manufacturing constraints can be viewed as overkill and not compatible in an IP ecosystem, while other DFT features are missing and these gaps need to be addressed. A definite balance between expectations from customers for DFx features, and collaterals and features offered by IP providers need to be in place to ensure competitive IP offerings.

[1]  Jeff Rearick Too much delay fault coverage is a bad thing , 2001, Proceedings International Test Conference 2001 (Cat. No.01CH37260).