cfry@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (C.Fry - Inst. Computer Research) (10/06/88)
Supporting the Research Community in Canadian
Universities to Turn Ideas into Chips
by
Dan Gale
Director, VLSIIC
Canadian Microelectronics Corporation
Abstract
The Canadian Microelectronics Corporation is implementing a plan
to make integrated circuit technology more widely available to
researchers on a supported basis. For five years the CMC has
lent design and test equipment to universities and coordinated
access to chip manufacturing services. This coordination effort
is being extended in many ways:
- distributing and supporting commercial software for
designing chips using standard-cell or full-custom
methodologies;
- taking steps to acquire, develop and maintain cell
libraries for 3-micron and 1.5-micron CMOS manufactur-
ing technologies;
- establishing compatibility with industrial interests
(to help aid technology transfer), for example, using
cell definitions which are compatible with those used
in industry and using design rules which are consistent
with vendors' usual technology;
- contracting with universities for technology explora-
tion with a view to using the results to provide the
wider community with access to the technology, for ex-
ample, Gallium Arsenide or BICMOS technologies;
- contracting for demonstration of vendor services re-
lated to semi-custom design of integrated circuits with
the objective being to select the service(s) which
would be beneficial to the wider community, for exam-
ple, supported gate-array design methodology and
manufacturing.
It would seem reasonable, at least superficially, to imagine that
special purpose information processors, ie., chips, would be use-
ful in a variety of applications across the spectrum of universi-
ty research. The CMC is interested in promoting the application
of IC technology by innovators in the research community who
might not be knowledgeable in the technology. To turn their
ideas into silicon, it is essential to have expertise on staff
capable of assisting in the design process. These same staff
members are also involved with the delivery of resources to tech-
nology developers.
The talk will include a survey of past achievements, the organi-
zation and activity at present and the plans to coordinate access
to technology on a supported basis.
DATE: Wednesday, October 12, 1988
TIME: 3:30 p.m.
PLACE: University of Waterloo, Davis Centre, Room 1302
Everyone is welcome. Refreshments served.