TSMC selected MunEDA WiCkeD for RF reference design kit (RDK) 2.0

HSINCHU, TAIWAN: MunEDA's tool suite WiCkeDTM has been validated for TSMC’s RF Reference Design Kit (RDK) 2.0 as part of the TSMC Open Innovation Platform.

WiCkeD covers a wide range of topic in interactive and automatic specification-driven custom circuit design, including design centering, circuit sizing for performance and yield, performance analysis, statistical circuit analysis.

“MunEDA complements our RF RDK 2.0” stated Tom Quan, Deputy Director of Design Methodology & Service Marketing at TSMC. “We are happy to collaborate with MunEDA, the experts on statistical circuit analysis and specification-driven circuit design automation. WiCkeD delivers a substantial benefit to the designers using TSMC technology and was validated for TSMC’s 65nm RF RDK 2.0.”

“We are proud that TSMC has selected MunEDA WiCkeD to be integral part of the TSMC RF RDK 2.0”, stated Michael Pronath, MunEDA Vice President Products & Solutions. “Our cooperation with TSMC and our mutual customers showed that specification driven design and statistical design are important for successful high-end circuit design in modern process technologies.”

RF circuit design becomes challenging in sub-100nm technologies for many reasons like lower core voltages, less headroom, more on-chip variation and other effects that can affect performance, robustness and yield of critical circuit designs. Circuit designers use MunEDA’s tool suite WiCkeD to balance specs, area, power, reliability and robustness. WiCkeD can automate manual circuit design tasks in IP porting and cell migration to maximize designers’ efficiency.

Main benefits of using MunEDA WiCkeD with TSMC process technologies:
* Improve robustness of circuit designs against parametric process variation.
* Achieve performance goals, power and area requirements.
* Optimal use of the process technology’s capabilities.
* Improve designer’s efficiency to reduce the design and sizing time.

MunEDA WiCkeD is in industrial use by leading semiconductor companies worldwide in the areas of communication, computer, memories, automotive, and consumer electronics. Typical application fields of WiCkeD are demanding AMS/RF designs, high speed digital I/O, and memory.