The Via-Programmable LSI Design Architecture using EB direct writing and it's application to Unique LSI for the Authentication device.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Integrated electronic system composed of microprocessors and large memories can be realized as a single chip owing to the progress of micro-fabrication technology of VLSI. The photo-mask cost of standard-cell-based ASICs has been increased so prohibitively that low-volume production LSIs are difficult to fabricate due to high non-recurring engineering (NRE) cost including mask cost. Electron Beam direct writing (EBDW) technology is the most cost-effective lithography tool, because it is mask-less technology. The EB exposure time will be greatly reduced by applying character-projection (CP) EB direct writing. So we have developed new LSI device architecture appropriate for this CP EB direct-writing.In 2006, we proposed the user-programmable architecture called VPEX (Via Programmable logic device using EXclusive-or array), in which the hardware logic can be programmed by changing layout patterns on 2 via-layers. The logic element (LE) of VPEX consists of complex-gate-type EXclusive OR (EXOR) and Inverter (NOT) gates. The single LE can output 12 logics which include NOT, Buffer (BUF), all 2-inputs logic functions, 3-inputs AOI21 and inverted-output multiplexer (MUXI) by changing via-1 layout pattern. Furthermore, via-1 layout is optimized for CP EB direct writing.In 2007, we compared the performance of area, speed, and power consumption of VPEX with that of standard-cell-based ASICs and FPGAs. As a result, the speed performance of VPEX was much better than FPGAs and about 1.3-1.6 times worse than standard-cells. Furthermore we developed LSI test chip which applying VPEX architecture. The process technology used in this chip is 0.18 urn CMOS. We will evaluate this chip in the near future.