Prospects of IC Industry in China

1
Prospects of IC Industry in China

• Heng Liao
• liaoheng_at_pmc-sierra.com
• Technical Advisor, PMC-Sierra, Inc.
• Adjunct Professor, Tsinghua University

2
Outline

• Backgrounds
• Why is China of Interest?
• Recent IC Design Activities
• Government sponsored CPU research
• Communication IC (ASICs ASSPs)
• Consumer IC
• Technology Access
• Foundry
• Design Services
• Procedures
• Benefits of doing IC design in China
• Trends Challenges

3
Backgrounds

• Myself
• Ph.D. Computer Science Technology, Tsinghua
  University
• Postdoc, Princeton University
• Designer, Leader, Technical Advisor, PMC-Sierra,
  Inc.
• PMC-Sierra, Inc.
• Leading fabless IC company in Networking/Telecom,
  MIPS processor
• Based in Burnaby, 13 design centers all over the
  world
• Nasdaq 100, SP 500 company
• Recent thrust to further penetration in China
  market
• Tsinghua University (Beijing)
• Leading University in China, rated 1 over the
  past 5 years
• I recently joined Depart of Computer Science
  Technology as Adjunct Professor to guide various
  IC research projects

4
Why is Chinas IC Industry of Interest?

• Government investment in IC foundry
• Several modem IC foundries being set up
• Tax benefits for High-tech companies
• Incubator, government VC/loan to help startups
• Competition among major cities provinces
• Shanghai surrounding cities, Beijing, Shenzhen
• Government spending in IC
• Citizenship ID, Shanghai Metro IC Card, etc
• MII MST policies to encourage IC design
• Hungry fabs crying for more IC designs to fill
  capacity
• National interest in building IC design industry
• IC design with heavy IP content will bring
  Chinas high-tech industry to the next level
• Manufacturing gt IP development
• Economic growth creates market opportunities
• Ever increasing share in the global IC TAM
• Local design capability can best capture and
  deliver the need of local requirements

5
Recent IC Design Activities

• Take a few examples learnt from the press for
  evaluation
• Excellent execution by unexperienced teams
• Most conducted by government research institutes
  (Academy of Science, major universities and the
  affiliate companies)
• Some design activities by major telecom system
  vendors (Huawei, ZTE)
• Startup fabless IC companies

6
CPU Design Activies

• LongXin (??God Son)
• 266Mhz, MIPS V, 32-bit embedded processor with
  FPU, fab in TSMC .18um
• Team of around 30, Institute of Computers, China
  Academy of Science,????????????????
• Compatible with IDT 4600
• Shengwei (??I FM101)
• 66Mhz, X86 Instruction set, with integrated
  peripherals, fab in .35 um
• Fudan University
• Duoshi (?? MISC9800)
• 64 bit Ultra Sparc
• Compatible to Ultra-Sparc 20
• ??????????????? ,?????????????????????????????????
  ????
• Fab by Fujitsu
• ARM core
• Beijing University
• MIPS 4KC
• Tsinghua University
• Many other government sponsored projects under
  way

7
Shengwei (??I FM101)
8
Shengwei (??I FM101)

• On-chip Peripherals
• Chip Select Logic
• JTAG
• Clock and power control unit
• DMA controller
• Watchdog timer
• Bus monitor unit
• 2 UARTs
• 1 Synchronous serial port
• 3 timers/counters
• General purpose I/O
• Interrupt Controllers
• 2 channel DMA controller

• Key features
• 32-bit CISC CPU core
• 12 Embedded peripherals on chip
• Compatible with Intel X86 instruction set
• High reliability, Industrial quality
• ESD gt5000V
• Power supply Voltage 5V/3V
• Ambient temperature -55 to 125C
• Max Clock frequency gt 66Mhz
• Fabricated in 0.35 um IC technology

9
Godson-1A??

• Key features
• 32-bit RISC CPU Core
• 32-bit SysAD bus
• Pin compatible to IDT-4600
• MIPS V instruction set
• Floating point
• Max Clock frequency 266Mhz (typical case)
• Fabricated in TSMC 0.18 um technology
• IC Flow
• Standard cell
• Synopsys synthesized soft core
• Artisan .18um library
• Artisan .18um RAM compiler
• Avanti Astro Place Route
• Outsourced to design services company (Acacia,
  based on San Jose)

10
Comparison between Godson-1A with PMC MIPS
processors
11
Comparison with PMC MIPS-based Products
SOC Products
1500
0.13u
Next Gen
Next Gen
0.13u
RM9000x2
Core Performance (MHz)
1000
RM9000


Standard Products (SysAD)
Next Gen
0.13u
RM7000C
0.13u
RM7065C
RM7000B
500
0.18u
0.18u
RM7065A
RM7000A
0.18u
RM5261A
Godson
RM5231A
Available
FM101
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
12
Communication IC

• Communication ASIC and ASSP developments
• System companies Huawei, ZTE, Fiberhome, Harbor
  Networks
• ASSP companies New Wave,
• Spanning Access (E1 framer, TUPP), Routers,
  Wireless, SDH Transport (SDH framers, mappers),
  Ethernet over SONET mapper, DSLAM, telephone
  switch
• Motivations
• Lower system costs
• Focus on simple but high volume components (e.g
  SDH 155 framer, E1 framer)
• Take profit from the once lucrative Communication
  IC market
• Clone/Simplify earlier PMC, Zarlink, Mindspeed,
  Agere parts
• Take advantage of Moores Law to achieve lower
  cost (.35um/.25um)
• Cost reduce FPGA
• No standard products available for some system
  specific FPGA device
• Easy to harden a proven FPGA design
• Most have capabilities to compete with
  International corporations
• E.g. in wireless systems, many components are
  ASIC based.
• Capabilities
• Most designs are in .35um technologies, some have
  used .25um technology
• Relatively simple design, often adopt a strip
  down feature set of mature ASSP products
• Trends

13
Consumer IC

• Very poor RD capabilities of consumer
  electronics companies
• E.g. TCL, Haier, Changhong had next to zero RD
  team
• Often adopt a complete reference system design
  from chip companies or 3rd party
• Some have license large volume chips from small
  design houses
• DVD controller (MPEG2 decoder) _at_ 2.0 a piece
• Strong competition from ASSP companies from US,
  Japan and Europe
• Lower design cost is no longer a key advantage
  because the cost is amortized over millions of
  units shipped globally
• Emerging China specific applications will drive
  consumer IC demands
• Citizenship IC card, Transit pass, University IC
  card
• HDTV standard, digital cable will China use its
  own standard?
• 3G wireless (China MII is pushing TDS CDMA for
  3G, but no carrier has announced support for it
  yet?)
• Chinas special DVD format?
• Linux based network PC
• POS, ATM, credit card, tax machines (highly
  competitive)
• Already dominating low technology content IC
  devices
• Clock, calculators, sound sensitive switch,
  telephone dialer,

14
IC Foundries in China

• SMICS (? ? ? ? )
• Phase I 1.1B USD
• Partner with Toshiba, Charter semi
• 8 inch, .18um wafer
• Key products
• LCD driver, Flash memory
• .13um copper process demonstrated
• Other fabs
• ? ? , Motorola,? ? NEC ,? ? ,? ? ? ? ,? ? ? ? ? ?
  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
• Shanghai Zhangjiang high-tech zone
• 200 IC design companies

15
SMICS services
16
SMICS .18um library

• 0.18um VeriSilicon SMIC18 LibrariesStandard
  cellThis is designed for high-density, 9-track
  layout architecture to offer IC designers maximum
  area efficiency without sacrificing performance.
  It has a rich set of Boolean functions, multiple
  drive strengths, highly accurate timing, power
  characterizations and provides advanced synthesis
  tools to realize the most complex designs.
  Features
• SMIC 0.18um Logic 1P6M Salicide 1.8V/3.3V process
  
• 505 cells
• More than 130 cell types
• Process optimization
• Ultra high speed, high density and low power
• Optimized for the target place-and-route tool
• Supports 4 or more metal layers
• Fully verified tool models
• Comprehensive design tool support
• Spare gate cells available

17
SMICS I/O Pads

• In-line and staggered I/OThe in-line I/O pads
  and stagger I/O pads include 28 basic I/O cells.
  Each cell can be configured to produce over 700
  functional I/O cells, such as CMOS or
  Schmitt-Trigger input buffers (with or without
  pull up/down), output or 3-state output buffers
  (with or without pull up/down), bi-directional or
  3-state bi-directional buffers, etc. This
  library also has current programmable pads, each
  of which can be programmed to 16-drive strengths.
  Features
• SMIC 0.18um Logic 1P6M Salicide 1.8V/3.3V process
  
• 3.3V I/O, 1.8V core
• 5V tolerant
• Linear or staggered bond available
• Pad pitch in-Line 70um stagger 40um
• Cell count 56
• Slew-rate control pads
• Configurable and programmable
• Analog input/output pads available
• Integrated (Or Not) resistor and capacitor in
  oscillator pad

18
SMICS .18 RAM compilers

• Single-port/dual-port SRAM compilerFeatures
• Precise optimization for SMIC six-layer metal
  0.18um CMOS process
• Very high speed (up to 400MHz at 8Kx64 bits)
• Fast access time and fast cycle time
• Completely static operation, very low power
• Near-zero hold time (data, address and control
  inputs)
• Two fully independent read-write ports
• Comprehensive configurable range - from 8 to
  8,192 words, 2 to 256 bits
• Includes a complete set of tool models and
  characterization data

19
SMICS Design Services

• Design Services
• Design porting, taking current design from other
  foundries to SMIC
• Gate level netlist to GDSII backend design
• RTL to GDSII design flow will be available
• Third-party design house alliance
• Shuttle serviceTo help our customers achieve
  fast and low-cost prototyping and new design
  development, SMIC offers a shuttle service that
  spreads the cost of manufacturing one mask set
  and wafers among several customers. Currently, we
  offer 0.18um technology monthly and 0.25um/0.35um
  technology quarterly on this service.  

20
EDA tools

• Most if not all the tools are available in China
  (e.g. Tsinghua VLSI lab, Sun OS)
• Synopsis design compiler
• Synopsis Prime time
• Aynopsis Apollo Astro
• Have seen pirate software on the web
• LINUX based software
• Run on low cost PC

21
Design Services

• Very few mature design services companies
• Most can not support the local fabs
• Most are very small in scale (lt10 engineers)
• Can only support the basic place route with the
  standard cell/pad library provide by the fab
• Packaging, special substrate, DFT, production
  testing, many issues to resolve
• No production engineering capabilities
• No calibration capabilities
• Can only do small, low speed, pure digital
  design, and the user has to pray there is no
  production or yield problems

22
Key Benefits of starting IC design Center in China

• Low human cost
• Huge talent pool from top universities
• Continuous supply of high quality people that can
  be easily trained
• Relative low cost of engineers (North America,
  loaded cost is around USD 250K, China probably
  1/5)
• Lower operating cost
• Lower cost facilities in Tier 2 cities
• Work shifts to save tooling cost
• Lower validation cost
• Policy support
• Tax benefits
• Government investment
• Incubators provide office facilities
• Low tapeout NRE for chip development
• Multi-project wafer (government sponsored)
• Free library
• Low mask cost (government subsidized)
• Well position to address local market
• Local requirements can not easily be addressed by
  North American companies
• Streamline the customer feedback from Customer gt
  Sales -gt Marketing -gt RD

23
Challenges for starting IC design center in China

• IC design industry still in infancy
• Lack of experience work force
• University programs are not update to date,
  professors are lacking engineering experience
• The food chain of IC industry has not been well
  established
• Design -gt backend services -gt fab -gt packaging-gt
  testing
• Foundry immature poor support, lack of mature
  flow high risk
• General weaknesses
• Poor respect for procedures
• Depend on human experience rather than
  procedures, scripts and tools.
• Dependency on star employees
• High turn-over rate of experience engineers, low
  loyalty
• Lack of experienced engineering managers that can
  deal with complex projects
• Low respect for good craftsmanship
• Hack something to work
• Low verification/validation effort
• Low QC effort
• Poor respect for company Intellectual property
  rights
• Low patience level, do not want to develop
  reusable complex IP