Proven technology significantly reduces risk, time-to-market and overall cost

Belgium, April 8, 2019 – Sofics bvba ( www.sofics.com), a leading semiconductor integrated circuit IP provider announced that it has expanded its TakeCharge® Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) and Analog IO portfolio with solutions for the TSMC 7nm FinFET process. Sofics has already verified its TakeCharge Analog IO’s and ESD protection clamps on a wide variety of processes, including CMOS, SOI and FinFET technologies across various fabs and foundries. 

Sofics is a foundry independent semiconductor IP provider that has supported 60+ fabless companies worldwide with customized/specialty Analog I/Os and on-chip ESD protection. Most foundries provide I/O libraries for free. However, for several application types the general purpose I/Os introduce all kinds of limitations. Fabless companies using Sofics IP can enable higher performance, higher robustness and reduce design time and cost. The technology is silicon and product proven in more than 3000 mass produced IC-products. 

Interface ESD protection in FinFET technology is challenging. The FinFET circuits fail easily under stress and the traditional ESD concepts are not effective anymore. Moreover, for advanced applications free GPIO libraries introduce limitations on the circuit performance due to excessive parasitic capacitance, leakage or voltage tolerance. 

“Our specialized interface solutions enable product reliability and manufacturing yield for the leading-edge applications in the world’s most advanced foundry process”, said Koen Verhaege, CEO of Sofics. “This defines one of our key roles in the IP eco-system: reducing time-to-market and optimizing customer profit by mitigating the risk, expenses and delays of ESD re-design. The cells provide competitive advantage through improved yield, reduced silicon footprint and enable high speed, higher operating voltages and complex architectures.“ 

“Whether it is 0.18um CMOS or 7nm FinFet does not really matter. Fabless companies will always benefit from a shorter timeline and a lower cost combined with the confidence of a working solution”. 

TakeCharge cells as well as robust I/O solutions are readily available from Sofics.