Alliance aids educational IC design

AMI Semiconductor has renewed its partnership with Mosis to participate in the Mosis multiproject wafer programme and Mosis education programme.

AMI Semiconductor has renewed its partnership with Mosis, a prototype and low volume production integrated circuit fabrication service, to participate in the Mosis multiproject wafer (MPW) programme and Mosis education programme (MEP).

These programmes provide access to wafers for IC development, semiconductor prototyping and test chips as an inexpensive method to prove out silicon to small businesses, startups, educational facilities and other Mosis customers.

Through the MPW programme, development and manufacturing expenses are shared across multiple Mosis customers by consolidating separate chip designs onto a single wafer.

The wafers are processed in AMIS fabs in a variety of mixed-signal/analogue CMOS process technologies, ranging from 1.5 to 0.35um.

AMIS will continue to provide a quarterly run of wafers at no cost to Mosis for use with its education programme - MEP.

"We are proud to have AMIS as a key sponsor of the MEP programme", said Cesar Pina, Director of Mosis.

"The prototyping costs of many new designs make them impractical to manufacture on a dedicated run basis".

"Mosis' MEP programme, in conjunction with AMI Semiconductor's generosity, enables educational facilities to bring these designs to life".

"Through its support of MEP, AMIS is helping to educate and train future semiconductor design engineers", said Al Morrison, Vice President of AMI Semiconductor's mixed-signal foundry business.

"Graduating students and small, or start-up businesses using these programmes represent possible future employees, partners or customers of AMIS who will have experience designing and working with our manufacturing processes".

With the support of AMIS, the MEP programme supports more than 5000 students per year and generates more than 1000 designs per year.

These designs are used for classroom instruction and unsponsored research, giving engineering students hands-on, practical IC design and manufacturing experience using AMIS technologies at an affordable price.

"The whole US IC design community owes Mosis and AMIS a debt of gratitude for the opportunities they are affording our students", said Richard B Brown, Chairman of the Mosis Advisory Council for Education and Dean of Engineering at the University of Utah.

"By providing students access to real-world technology, AMIS enables them to test the circuits that they have designed in class, gaining valuable maturity as chip designers, as well as a great sense of accomplishment".

"Without AMIS support, the number of IC design courses and qualified engineering graduates would drop precipitously".

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