Meeting the evolving challenges of the semiconductor industry

The semiconductor industry is approaching maturity. Growth expectations scaled back from historical norm Investments to stay competitive are outpacing industry growth. At the same time, customer pressure to keep costs down is relentless. Technology and product development costs are soaring. Very few companies can afford process development and manufacturing expense for leading edge technologies. These rising costs are driving fablite/fabless models, as well as partnerships for technology development. Industry players are also increasing presence in low cost geographies. Market forces is also causing product cycles to continue shrinking while system complexity continues to grow. Semiconductor industry is increasingly driven by the consumers Embedded intelligence is driving consumer growth and creating opportunities for convergence. Convergence sets up a huge growth opportunity - but also a threat to traditional business models. Companies will have to alter traditional mindsets and business models to succeed. Customer expectations are evolving with increased solution focus, not just a silicon focus. This is driving partnerships, global alliances, and differentiated business & investment models Success in the marketplace requires High levels of Integration, so companies must build strong software and systems capability. In addition to the global economic and market challenges, the semiconductor industry is facing several technology challenges as well. As technology scales it is becoming increasingly difficult for traditional design tools and models to accurately predict silicon behavior. Compounding this is the increasing sensitivity to process variations. These trends necessitate a tight coupling between design and manufacturing. This is apparent in the emergence of Design for manufacturability (DFM) as a major thrust in the last few years. DFM disciplines are rapidly gaining acceptance as a mechanism to model lithography effects in design and to incorporate rules and disciplines that would optimize yield. Advanced delay testing techniques have also proven very valuable as a mechanism to measure and analyze silicon behavior in order to understand how it correlates with the design models and to try and close the feedback loop between manufacturing and design. Another major challenge is the emergence of power as a primary focus for most designs. This has been driven primarily by physical and energy constraints as well as by consumer demands for battery-based products. This has driven the need for aggressive support for low power design techniques through the entire design flow encompassing representation, implementation and verification.