Cadence and Imec to offer shuttle program to Indian universities

BANGALORE, INDIA: Cadence Design Systems (India) Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Cadence Design Systems Inc., has entered into an agreement with imec, a world-leading independent research center in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology, in conjunction with the imec Europractice IC Service, to develop a shuttle program for Cadence University Software Program members.

This provides Indian universities with unprecedented access to advanced technologies, enabling their students to work with state-of-the-art process and design techniques through to silicon tape-out.

As part of the agreement, Cadence will offer support to its University Software Program members by providing flows and methodologies, and imec will provide access to IC technologies down to 65nm, SPICE models, design rules, PDKs, and standard cell libraries.

The shuttle program will allow University Software Program members to tape-out all technologies offered through Europractice. This will give universities foundry access for silicon verification which has been a hurdle due to lack of strong academia-foundry partnerships. The Cadence-imec collaboration bridges the gap, allowing students to span SoC and Silicon Realization, key tenets of the Cadence EDA360 vision.

“Cadence has had a long-standing commitment to developing India’s talent pool through its University Software Program,” said Jaswinder Ahuja, corporate VP and MD, Cadence Design Systems (India) Pvt Ltd. “The collaboration with imec takes our program to the next level by giving students access to actual silicon samples. It is an invaluable experience for students to work on a real-life tape out and will better prepare them to handle the tape out pressures of the fast-paced semiconductor industry. The Cadence University Software Program in India currently has more than 250 colleges enrolled across India and encompasses faculty development, the Cadence Design Contest, and the Cadence VLSI Certification Program.”

Dr. Carl Das, director of ASIC Services at imec, said: “We see a great potential for innovation in Indian universities. This collaboration with Cadence will help grow the industry by providing strategic value to universities and putting them on equal footing with their foreign counterparts. The collaboration will also help grow the Europractice service, offering more technologies and more frequent shuttle runs. We are excited to enter into this collaboration and look forward to having many institutes participate.”

Dr. Paul Marchal, R&D director of imec India, said: “Imec is committed to catalyze Indian entrepreneurs in creating nano-electronic products and solutions. From our newly opened Bangalore office (www.imec-in.in), we look forward to working with Indian universities and companies to validate ideas, build prototypes, and support low-volume production. We are very pleased to have the support of Cadence in this endeavor.”