TSMC Says IC Industry Success Starts with Design Collaboration; Shrinking Market Windows Require New Design Model
SAN JOSE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—April 13, 2004—
The semiconductor industry roadmap is still intact. In
fact, at its Technology Symposium today, TSMC (NYSE:TSM) said it has
produced the industry's first fully functional 65nm SRAM modules,
along with the industry roadmap for this development. At the same
time, TSMC executives cited collaboration in the design environment as
key to successfully delivering new semiconductor products.
"The escalating complexity of semiconductor design, combined with
its increasing interdependence with manufacturing, packaging and test
processes, makes collaboration in the design environment -- not just
with the foundry -- imperative to marketplace success," said Dr. FC
Tseng, deputy chief executive officer of TSMC.
"The emergence of the foundry business model over the last two
decades prompted many companies to concentrate on their core
competencies and build all these virtually integrated services around
them," continued Dr. Tseng. "Today, these capabilities must be in
place before an engineer starts a new design. It must be implicit in
the design tools."
Dr. Tseng's comments were echoed by Technology Symposium keynote
speaker Dr. Aart de Geus, chairman and CEO of Synopsys, Inc. Dr. de
Geus' appearance, while marking the first time that a TSMC Alliance
Partner keynoted its Technology Symposium, also emphasized the
importance of the collaboration model.
"Today, TSMC proves its technology using Synopsys design tools and
IP, and Synopsys proves its design tools and IP using TSMC
technology," said Synopsys chairman and CEO Aart de Geus. "More to the
point, Synopsys tools in TSMC's Reference Flow 4.0 include scripts and
guidelines that provide a level of manufacturing readiness that simply
is no longer possible using design rules alone. And that is the key
message here: Manufacturing readiness happens just as much in the
design environment as it does on the factory floor."
Since the creation of the pure-play foundry industry by TSMC in
1987, designers in start-ups and established semiconductor companies
alike have been free to explore innovative new applications for
semiconductor technology. Integrated circuits built under the foundry
model are now found in an unprecedented array of wireless and wire
line communications devices, portable and handheld computers, and
embedded technology for medical, sports, automotive, games and
industrial uses.
The rapid expansion of innovation enabled by foundry companies has
been matched only by the explosive acceleration in competition, as new
IC companies battle for market share all over the globe. Today, a
typical market window is measured in months, not years. Success is
often made or missed in a matter of days. To be successful, IC
companies must operate as smoothly as the devices they sell.
"Our goal is to help our partners bring products to market
quickly, and in the volumes necessary to ensure success," said Dr.
Tseng. "To make this collaboration effective, we work closely with
leading developers of EDA tools, intellectual property cores and
libraries. It's a rich interaction that's as deep as it is broad,
spanning both mainstream technologies and leading edge, advanced
semiconductor manufacturing processes."
Using this new collaboration approach, TSMC and its partners are
able to develop new products and services for the designer using a
concurrent, proactive and global approach. For instance, developers of
intellectual property cores and libraries become advanced technology
customers, proving their library and IP offerings in the first wafers
developed for each new process node. EDA tools vendors help overcome
design barriers by proving TSMC technology using these IP and library
designs, as well as actual devices from early TSMC customers. In
return, they are able to embed scripts and design guidelines into
their toolsets, improving the yields of leading edge semiconductor
designs. As a result, early adopters of TSMC advanced technology are
able to derive far more benefit from third-party alliance members'
services than ever before.
This new collaboration model replaces an older supply chain model
whereby activities within each segment of the supply chain were
sequential, reactive and independent. Optimizations were not shared,
so benefits were slow to develop. With the emergence of the
deep-submicron IC era, the older model no longer provides sufficient
advantage to designers.
About TSMC
TSMC is the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry,
providing the industry's leading process technology and the foundry
industry's largest portfolio of process-proven library, IP, design
tools and reference flows. The company operates one advanced 300mm
wafer fab, five eight-inch fabs and one six-inch wafer fab. TSMC also
has substantial capacity commitments at joint venture fab SSMC and at
its wholly-owned subsidiary, WaferTech. In early 2001, TSMC became the
first IC manufacturer to announce a 90-nm technology alignment program
with its customers. TSMC's corporate headquarters are in Hsinchu,
Taiwan. For more information about TSMC see http://www.tsmc.com.
Contact:
TSMC North America
Dan Holden, 408-382-7921
Cell: 408-910-1141
Dholden@tsmc.com
