Tau tapes out switch fabric chipset in record time

Fabless semiconductor company Tau Networks has successfully employed Monterey physical-design tools to develop its two-chip network fabric solution.

Fabless semiconductor company Tau Networks has successfully employed Monterey physical-design tools to develop its two-chip network fabric solution.

Tau worked closely with Monterey during development of these two world-class devices to meet Tau's aggressive integration, cost and performance goals.

The two devices, in silicon now, together embody 70 million transistors including traditional digital P and R logic, custom and semicustom logic and custom high-speed analogue I/O.

Using a combination of Monterey IC Wizard hierarchical design planner, Sonar physical prototyper and Dolphin physical implementation system, Tau engineers were able to simultaneously tape out these two complex devices on schedule and in record time.

Tau combined high-speed custom analogue circuitry with the company's high-density patent-pending Virtual Output Queue management scheme.

Tau employed a proven 0.15-micron process and flip chip technology to minimise risk while delivering the density and performance that the Tau solution demands.

"Tau Networks delivers up to 16 times as many fabric ports and twice the number of Classes of Service as existing solutions while supporting datacomms and telecomms redundancy schemes", said Dave Gampell, Vice President of Marketing at Tau Networks.

"Through careful design planning, we're able to deliver ICs with superior performance at prices one-half to one-fifth that of our competitors.

To create these cost-effective high-performance ICs, we had to tackle serious physical-design challenges, and Monterey tools helped us achieve our cost goals without sacrificing IC performance".

Tau used Monterey tools to combine extensive custom digital and analogue circuitry, structured custom routing and standard place and route techniques, enabling the designers to maintain silicon area requirements while simultaneously meeting very high performance objectives.

"The ability to complete accurate planning and reliable physical design of industry-leading ICs such as Tau's is critical for rapid time-to-market", said Dave Reed, Vice President of Marketing at Monterey.

"Monterey tools enable market leaders like Tau to achieve competitive advantages by using custom developed IP, high-yield process technologies and innovative designs to meet tight requirements for cost and performance".

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