IC Mask Design News
February 2006
IC Mask Design hosts Seminar in Sophia Antipolis
On February 9th 2006, IC Mask Design, in association with the Chamber of Commerce, Nice - who provided us with logistical support - presented at La Maison des Entreprises de Sophia Antipolis.
The goal of the seminar was first to inform the participants about the many important aspects of continuous training in IC Layout, and second, to foster an appreciation of the value of producing and delivering high quality IC Layout in the overall design process.
The Seminar was entitled Layout Design: The Profession, The Risks, The Need To Train
This presentation reviewed the global challenges of the IC Layout Profession and the significance of up-skilling Physical Design Engineers.
Topics covered in the seminar included:
Deep submicron & nanometer physical design issues
- Managing the physical design challenges associated with decreasing geometries.
- Understanding the evolution of physical design methodologies to meet the demands of ultra-deep sub micron designs.
Automating the full custom design flow - Advantages & limitations of automating a traditionally manual process.
- Innovative techniques for reducing the physical design bottleneck and improving time-to-market.
"Right First Time" (RFT) Performance - Amalgamate the boundary of functional and physical design.
- The criticality of complete, correct and high quality physical design.
- Achieving meaningful improvements in the quality of deliverables of physical design teams.
- Guidelines on how to involve the right people, how to minimize the time and maximize the result.
Investing in human knowledge and competencies - "Training Needs Analysis".
- Opportunities to improve on current engineering skill sets.
- Confronting the shortfall in qualifications and lack of skilled design engineers.
- How and where to find the skills.
The seminar was extremely successful, with a substantial number of senior level engineers, representing the leading top 10 semiconductor companies, in attendance.
Having presented an in-depth analysis of these subject areas, IC Mask Design appears to have raised the level of understanding among the engineering community about the broader issues of training, development and quality in IC Layout.
"The seminar was a great success," said Fergal Brosnan, IC Mask Design’s CEO. "It truly exceeded our expectations."
About IC Mask Design
IC Mask Design is an industry leader in the provision of Physical Design Services and Software Solutions to the semiconductor industry. The company’s services encompass IC Layout and Training Programs, delivering expertise in Analog, RF, mixed-signal and digital design using the latest tools from leading EDA vendors. IC Mask Design also provides training courses covering the complete spectrum of physical design. Its Analog Layout Acceleration Platform aims to dramatically reduce analog layout design cycle time whilst producing optimal quality layout structures which incorporate circuit functionality requirements and process artefacts.
Further information is available from IC Mask Design's web site.
For more details, please contact:
Fergal BrosnanTel: +353 (0)61 448 530
Email: