( ESNUG 243 Item 5 ) ---------------------------------------------- [7/17/96]
Subject: (ESNUG 242 #7) What Is IBM Like To Work With As A Foundry?
> John, I am curious as to whether anyone has personal experiences with IBM
> as an ASIC vendor. I am looking for information and opinions about how
> they are to work with as an ASIC vendor with regards to tools support and
> issues, general responsiveness to problems, flexibility to work with their
> customers needs and requirements, etc.
From: dhirtzel@p94asics.geg.mot.com (Douglas Hirtzel)
John,
We utilized IBM as the foundry for several cmos asics in the size range of
200k gates when I was working as a contractor for Teradyne, Semiconductor
Tester Division in Agoura Hills, California. IBM employed a little bit
different philosophy went it came to customer training and support. IBM
hired a third party consulting firm, APK, to interface between IBM and the
local customers.
APK was then responsible for assisting the customer in their day to day
inquiries and the operation of the IBM timing tool Einstimer. The IBM people
were always available for phone contact and responded in a reasonable amount
of time to any questions that APK was unable to answer.
Be warned that you should have a standard sized RAM or "configurable register
arrays" if you intend on having embedded ram on the ASICs. IBM is capable of
building virtually any size "configurable register array" -- but the access
timing is *different* for each depth and width of the array -- each
configuration will require characterization.
- Douglas Hirtzel
Impact Design Services, LLC
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