Honeywell signs for help with rad-hard ASICs

Honeywell and Synopsys have signed an agreement to jointly develop a design infrastructure to support the creation of leading-edge radiation-hardened and radiation-tolerant ASICs.

Honeywell and Synopsys have signed an agreement to jointly develop a design infrastructure to support the creation of leading-edge radiation-hardened and radiation-tolerant ASICs.

The agreement is intended to enable Honeywell's military and aerospace customers to more rapidly design and implement ASICs required for next-generation systems, including satellites and space vehicles.

The collaboration combines core strengths from both companies to produce the industry's leading design and manufacturing infrastructure for components that require various levels of radiation resistance.

Radiation-hardened components are designed to continue to perform during and after exposure to high doses of radiation.

Honeywell is currently a producer of radiation-hardened ASICs and other components used in aircrafts, satellites and space vehicles.

The US Department of Defense (DOD) Radiation Hardened Microelectronics Accelerated Technology Development programme has provided funding to Honeywell for development of a deep submicron multi-million-gate ASIC design and fabrication capability.

"This agreement will allow us to produce our customer's high performance 'rad-hard' circuits more quickly and with relatively low risk to our customer", said Eric Doremus, Vice President and General Manager at Honeywell's Solid State Electronics Centre.

"We expect to begin offering the design environment produced by this collaboration in second quarter of 2004".

The agreement provides for a collaborative design environment and comprehensive set of design services that will also offer expanded support options for radiation-hardened ASIC development.

"Working with Honeywell, a leader in the military and aerospace industries, gives us the unique opportunity to apply the full complement of Synopsys' technology and services to meet the rapidly advancing design requirements of modern rad-hard ASICs", said John Chilton, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Solutions Group, Synopsys.

"The resulting design flow will not only accommodate semiconductors of increasing complexity, but will also improve the predictability of the ASIC development process for Honeywell's ASIC customers".

Through the collaboration, the parties expect to reduce the size of individual transistors on radiation-hardened integrated circuits to 0.15um.

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