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Keithley Instruments and Celestry Announce Cooperative Agreement On Semiconductor Test and Modeling
CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 4, 2001--Keithley Instruments,
Inc. (NYSE:KEI) today announced a cooperative agreement with Celestry
Design Technologies, Inc. Under this agreement, each firm will provide
technical and marketing support for the other's products that are used
for semiconductor characterization and modeling. Initially, the two
firms will provide support for shared applications that use Keithley's
Model 4200-SCS Semiconductor Characterization System and Celestry's
BSIMPro(TM) modeling package.
Bill Merkel, Market Development Manager for Keithley's
Semiconductor Products, stated ``Celestry has a strong team and product
line for device modeling, and BSIMPro has been widely adopted by
leading semiconductor companies worldwide. Our cooperation provides
semiconductor device engineers with the productivity gains inherent in
the new Model 4200-SCS, and the flexibility to do advanced SPICE
modeling with ease and confidence.'' Dale A. Pollek, Vice President of
Marketing for Celestry explained that ``Keithley has long been a leader
in automated parametric test systems for the semiconductor industry.
The Model 4200-SCS is an important step forward in device
characterization, and now with new drivers, this new instrument is
available to BSIMPro users.''
Applications and Markets. Keithley's Model 4200-SCS Semiconductor
Characterization System is used by product designers and process
engineers around the world to measure critical device characteristics
on semiconductor wafers during product development, production,
reliability testing, failure analysis and incoming inspection. This
system can be used for IC modeling with Celestry's BSIMPro software,
which extracts key parameters and optimizes their fit in the
appropriate SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit
Emphasis) model. The results of the modeling process are used to
shorten the time it takes to refine an IC design.
Application Background. Because of the enormous number of
variables in design and production of an IC, data collection and
manipulation must be highly automated to speed up analysis. In the
past, a significant problem has been separation of the data collection
and circuit analysis processes, which slowed down SPICE modeling and
circuit development. Ideally, an IC design engineer would like an
automated system that collects device data directly from a
semiconductor wafer and feeds it into a SPICE model of his choosing.
This allows fast manipulation of variables and `what-if' analysis to
arrive at optimized device and circuit designs. Under the cooperative
arrangement between Keithley and Celestry, a new driver has been
created to establish an interface between the Keithley Model 4200-SCS
instrumentation and the Celestry BSIMPro modeling system.
Technical Details. Introduced in 2000, the Keithley Model 4200-SCS
gained immediate success with semiconductor fabs because of its ease
of use, speedy measurements, high precision and sub-femtoamp
resolution. These features prompted Keithley/Celestry customers to
request SPICE modeling support for the Model 4200-SCS. Under the
cooperative agreement, Keithley is supplying Celestry with its Model
4200-SCS, CV instruments, and engineering support to facilitate
development and maintenance of instrument drivers for BSIMPro.
Celestry has developed the instrument drivers and will support BSIMPro
customers who specify the Model 4200-SCS as their next generation
parameter analyzer.
From the results of this cooperative arrangement,
Keithley/Celestry customers get a flexible semiconductor
characterization and modeling system that is fully supported by both
firms. The Model 4200-SCS interfaces directly with the PC that is
running BSIMPro. After data is collected, the user can quickly extract
SPICE models using BSIMPro's proprietary extraction and optimization
algorithms for circuits containing diodes, MOSFET devices, bipolar
transistors and passive components. Once the models are extracted,
BSIMPro then allows the user to verify their robustness and smoothness
through a 3-D viewer and external network interface to SPICE
simulators. BSIMPro optimizes DC and AC model fits for analog,
digital, and mixed-signal applications.
For More Information. For information on Keithley's Model 4200-SCS
Semiconductor Characterization System, or any of its parametric test
solutions, contact Keithley at:
Telephone: 888-KEITHLEY
(888-534-8453)
440-248-0400
FAX: 440-248-6168
E-mail: product_info@keithley.com
Internet: www.keithley.com
Address: Keithley Instruments, Inc.
28775 Aurora Road
Cleveland, OH 44139-1891
For information on BSIMPro, or any of Celestry's design solutions,
contact Celestry at:
Telephone: (408) 451-1210
FAX: (408) 451-1211
E-mail: info@celestry.com
Internet: www.celestry.com
Address: Celestry Design Technologies, Inc
1982A Zanker Road
San Jose, CA 95112
About Keithley Instruments. Keithley Instruments, Inc. provides
electrical measurement solutions to the telecommunications,
semiconductor, optoelectronics and other electronic components
industries. Engineers and scientists around the world use Keithley's
advanced hardware and software for process monitoring, production test
and basic research.
About Celestry. Celestry Design Technologies, Inc. is a leading
provider of design solutions that enable IC and SoC engineers to
achieve optimal performance from semiconductor process technologies.
The Company delivers a comprehensive suite of modeling, simulation,
physical analysis and physical synthesis tools and services for
developing digital, mixed-signal and analog ICs and SoCs that are used
in networking, communication, multimedia and computing products.
Products and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of
their respective companies.
Contact:
Keithley Instruments, Inc.
Ellen Modock, 440/498-2746
modock_ellen@keithley.com
Reader Inquiries: 1-888-KEITHLEY (1-888-534-8453)
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