Process design kits for RF analog & mixed signal design methodologies enabling silicon success

With rapid advancements in the technology arena, novel design methodologies have been embraced and to support these requirements, semiconductor process technology is also rapidly evolving. There is a need for efficient handshake between the foundry and design houses. PDKs play an important role in inheriting the foundry offering to aid in successful silicon realization. This paper presents an overview of process design kits and the importance of well-crafted kits in niche RF IC designs. The chip design ecosystem has been pictorially explained while emphasizing on the role of a foundry in the ecosystem. The different components of the process design kit have been discussed in brief. The method of qualification of process design kits and the various quality enhancement approaches to enable first pass silicon success have been presented in this paper. Towards the end of the paper, different substrate methodologies adopted by foundries for RF designs have been presented at a high level.