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The Company
Giga Solution Tech. Co., Ltd. is a new RF solution service provider with a mission to provide professional RF testing. The experienced RF testing expertise may help foundries, IDM and fabless
companies to hold the reins of their core RF technologies more efficiently. With advanced RF testing technology, Giga Solution also provides value added RF device modeling and design kits. Giga Solution will stand as the strategic partner to help customers to march into RFIC implementation and thus promote the wireless applications.
The Challenge
The RFIC industry has become increasingly competitive. In order to meet time to market needs, RFIC designers require accurate device models, either from an internal fabrication facility or an external foundry, that reflect that foundry's current processes.
Giga Solution recently took the challenge of helping a foundry supply simulation model libraries supporting
an RF-CMOS 0.25/0.18µm technology to their customers by developing the RF models.
The major challenges for Giga Solution in providing this service were:
- Creating accurate models, so designers can develop the best circuit design for specific applications, from baseband to RF frequencies.
- Supporting all of the major EDA simulators, allowing designers to use their simulator of choice to design
RFIC.
- Fast turn around time, so designers can have models that include the latest special parameters in their designs.
The Solution
The Agilent Technologies IC-CAP (Integrated Circuit Characterization and Analysis Program) software and 85122A Precision Modeling System were used to create the RF CMOS model libraries.
Giga Solution used the IC-CAP solution to automate measurements and extract parameter data using the modeling system hardware, simulate device performance, as well as optimize model parameters.
The Result
As CMOS devices are pushed higher in frequency, it was important for Giga Solution to be able to model the RF effects due to internal and external parasitics. The IC-CAP solution provided the instrumentation and flexibility to properly model these RF effects and was a major contributor to the accuracy of the model libraries Giga Solution provided.
"The most important feature of IC-CAP is its open architecture which allowed us to create custom model extraction procedures to develop more accurate models", said Frank Chien, Vice President of Giga Solution. "We used the Parameter Extraction Language (PEL) to build up the RF extended model to fit the customers challenging requirement." As an HP Basic Language, PEL allows the users to modify or build extraction routines, functions, macros and other customization tasks in IC-CAP.
Once the parameter data has been extracted from the device, the model can be simulated and compared to measured data." We used the IC-CAP optimization feature to adjust the model parameters to ensure the results from several target simulators compare favorably with the measured results", said Chien.
"Because IC-CAP is an open software environment it allows us to provide custom models that support any EDA Tool", said Chien. This capability is very important for Giga Solution as they need to provide model libraries that will be compatible with their customer's simulator of choice.
Providing model libraries is not a one-time event. Technologies change, and foundry processes change. "It is absolutely imperative that we are able to respond quickly to model changes. Our customer's customer, the RFIC designer, requires it", explained Chien. "IC-CAP is a key tool for our business because it enables us to quickly model any changes and provide new libraries."
For more information about Agilent Technologies Advanced Design System, visit our Website: http://www.agilent.com/eesof-eda/ For more information about other Agilent test and measurement products, go to: http://www.agilent.com/find/tmdir/
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