So in the picture you can see a lot of encircled names like FAB, Chip Design House , EDA Tool Manufacturers, Services Companies , IP Design House, Post Silicon Validation Companies. You can see there are a lot of arrows going from one direction to another. This indicates that these things are well interconnected in terms of software/IP dependency & work-force exchange.
1. FAB :
Lets begin with FAB. FAB is a kind of Semiconductor House also known as Foundry. So let us look into what the foundry does. The foundry physically fabricate the chips for various Fab-less Design Houses. FAB also provide the Transistor Level Device level Models as well as Metal-Via level Physical Information i.e Design Rule Document and Tech Files to the Design House and the IP Manufacturers. FAB also provide the Process Design Kit also known as PDK. FAB receive the final GDSII from the Design House and fabricate the design on top of the Silicon Wafer.
2. IP Design House :
The next section is about IP Design House. IP resembles to the building block of a multistory building. Most common and well know IP Package is Standard Cell which every Digital Design needs. Generally the IP design house is closely connected to the FAB because when you order the PDK from the foundry you also need that compatible IPs to use in your design whether you are doing analog or digital design. IP design houses make the different type of IPs like analog , digital , and mixed signal IPs. If it is a Digital IP , it will contain the Logic Families, High Speed Interface Ips etc. We need semiconductor memories in every chip design. So there will be memory IP like Flash, SRAM , DRAM etc. Bitcoin IPs now a days very much popular because of the Crypto Currency Mines. For CHIP fabrication we will need the IO pad IP. Another Analog IP , PLL which sometimes act as the clock in the chip hence is of high demand. BiPolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) IPs are popular in high temperature Applications. Networking IPs are popular for networking applications . Automotive IPs are now in high demand because the automobiles use a lot of electronic gadgets inside them for various purpose like navigation , voice control etc. So Automotive IP is a kind of hot cake now a days.
IP design houses have different format so send them to the design houses. These are Broadly Categorized ad the SoftIP , HardIP and FirmIP. Large IP design houses also have a unit which usually make test-chip where different combinations of IP of whatever they manufacturer used to check their respective functionality on the silicon.
3. Chip Design Houses :
Next type of companies is the Chip Design Houses. If the Chip Design Houses is a Digital House then they will make the SOC using the RTL to GDSII flow. If it is a Analog Chip Design Houses then they will start their design with the Schematic , they will go up to the Layout and finally they stream out to GDSII. If the design is a Mixed Signal i.e. Combination of Digital & Analog design inside a single chip, then they will combine both the RTL & as well as the Schematic at the beginning for their digital and analog block respectively. The Mixed Signal Flow will continue up to the GDSII. There is one more, FPGA company. They will design FPGAs.
4. EDA Tool Manufacturers:
Now the next companies are EDA Tool Manufacturers. Now what these manufacturer do ? They make the necessary Software for the various stages of the of the design process. The design process includes Digital , Analog and AMS design flows. You cannot do the design and verification simply by hand. You have to do it by Software for sub nano meter designs. If you want to code the RTL for a digital design then you have to take the help of some of the software to verify the RTL code. So broadly we can categorize these tools in digital design like Verification, Synthesis, PnR, Physical Verification, STA Engine, Parasitic Extraction, Layout DRC and ERC tools. If it is Analog Design there will be Spice, Schematic Capture, Analog Layout and Analog Verification tools. Analog Flows also contain DRC & other Physical Verification tolls once the Layout is done.
If there are Mixed Signal designs, then you will use the mixed-signal-verification tools from these EDA Tool Manufacturer Companies. Now, these are called also product companies because they sell the software as a product and as well as corresponding applications engineering services to their client such as Chip Design House or IP Design House or the FAB.
5. Services Based Companies:
Next particular set of companies are Services Based Companies. These companies generally have a set of manpower pool for various skill-set to cover the various Design Houses (both Chip & IP). Domains they cover could be Verification or it could be Analog IP Design or it could be Layout Experts and so on. Based on that project whatever they get from different Chip Design Houses they sell their respective manpower to that Company. They will always keep a reservoir of people who are expertise in different domains. These people will be ready to cater services to the chip/ip design houses for a particular project any time they receive. As a example we can say the project maybe one particular SOC Design from beginning to end. Or it could be some IP Design Batches. These companies do not make any products rather there strength is the people who are working there. They provide project base design services , that is one particular ic is designed or the SOC is designed from the beginning to the end. So that will need people a dedicated team to work on that SOC project. ODC (offshore development center) is a model in the services companies. Say, the Product Company is a overseas company that is in a different country and in this situation the services company will setup a ODC inside the company where they will exclusively provide service to that particular product company only through VPN.
6. Post Silicon Validation Companies :
The next section is Post Silicon Validation companies. Post silicon verification is needed because once the chip come to the silicon, people have to physically test it. So the post silicon validation company exist to serve this purpose . The post silicon validation company , it could be inside the chip design company or it could be a outside company. So what they will do, once the silicon chip is made as a testchip(prototype) , they will validate with the physical and electronic verification system. Then physically/electrically verified data is compared to the software tested database prior to the Tape-Out. Generally when you're making a chip, it will have some operating frequency. On that particular frequency of operation is also have to be checked. Finally once all the testing are done they will generate the Silicon Report for that particular test-chip.
So folks, here we are done with the whole birds eye view which has been given to you. And now you know what are the different types of companies exist in VLSI, how they function and how they interact among each other !
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Courtesy : Image by Jeremy Waterhouse in pexels
