Formerly known as Berkeley Technology Associates (BTA) and the company credited with commercializing BSIMPro, ProPlus is promoting BSIMPro's 20 years of continuous technology advancement and contributions to integrated circuit (IC) design and the semiconductor industry.
BSIMProPlus™, latest version of the BSIMPro family of products, today serves the needs of more than 100 project teams worldwide.
Researchers led by Dr. Chenming Hu and Dr. Ping K. Ko from the University of California, Berkeley, invented BSIM3, the physics-based, accurate, scalable, robust and predictive MOSFET SPICE model, used for circuit simulation and CMOS technology development. It became the first industry-standard compact model, leading to the fabless-foundry business model and billions of dollars in revenue.
The BTA team was led by Dr. Zhihong Liu, a key BSIM3 model developer who is executive chairman of ProPlus Design Solutions. He remarks: "Several of us from U.C. Berkeley formed BTA to promote BSIM3 and provide commercial-grade parameter extraction software for BSIM3 model creation. BSIMPro quickly became the industry's golden model extraction tool adopted by leading semiconductor companies and ushered in the design-for-yield methodology."
"BSIMProPlus has played a pivotal role in the success of BSIM because even the best compact model would be incomplete without an excellent parameter extraction tool," comments Dr. Chenming Hu, TSMC distinguished professor of the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley. "BSIMProPlus helps the IC industry to model its technologies accurately, which is a critical step for designing high performance memory, analog and digital products."
SPICE models act as the link between design and manufacturing. "SPICE modeling is as critical today as it was 20 years ago," adds Dr. ShiuhWuu Lee, executive vice president at Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). "As semiconductor devices become more complicated, models must incorporate more complicated equations with added parameters to accurately simulate device characteristics over device geometries and operating conditions including process variations and the surrounding environment, something the ProPlus team is keenly aware of. I fully expect ProPlus will continue its R&D such that its flagship product BSIMProPlus will capably serve our community for many years to come."
Expanding DFY
ProPlus is strengthening the link from nano-scale devices to giga-scale circuit designs by providing a complete DFY solution, including advanced device modeling, a parallel SPICE simulator and hardware-validated variation analysis algorithms. It introduced in April NanoSpice™, the next-generation high-capacity, high-performance parallel SPICE simulator for giga-scale circuit simulation.
BSIMProPlus shares the same core SPICE engine with NanoSpice, a pure SPICE simulator that runs 10 to more than 100 times faster than traditional SPICE simulators. It is able to handle all circuit types, with an ability to simulate large-scale circuits of 50-million or more elements for generic circuit types, and 100-million or more elements for memory circuits.
For more information about ProPlus or to download a short history of BSIMProPlus, go to: www.proplussolutions.com.
About ProPlus Design Solutions
ProPlus Design Solutions, Inc. ( www.proplussolutions.com) delivers Electronic Design Automation (EDA) solutions with the mission to enhance the link between design and manufacturing. It is the global leader for SPICE modeling solutions and the leading technology provider for unique Design-for-Yield (DFY) products that integrate the key DFY components -- advanced device modeling software, a parallel SPICE simulation circuit simulator and hardware-validated statistical variation analysis tools. Products include: BSIMProPlus™/Model Explorer™, a modeling technology platform for nanometer devices; NoisePro™/9812B/9812D, the golden solution for low-frequency 1/f noise and Random Telegraph Signal (RTS) noise characterization and process monitoring; NanoSpice™, a high-capacity, high-performance parallel SPICE simulator for giga-scale circuit simulation; and NanoYield™/NanoExplorer™, a variation analysis platform for yield versus power, performance and area trade-off of memory, analog and digital circuit designs. ProPlus Design Solutions has R&D centers in the San Jose, Calif. and Beijing and Jinan, China, with sales offices in Tokyo, Japan, Hsinchu, Taiwan, and Shanghai, China. More information about ProPlus Design Solutions can be found at www.proplussolutions.com.
BSIMProPlus, Model Explorer, NanoExplorer, NanoSpice, NanoYield and NoisePro are registered trademarks of ProPlus Design Solutions. ProPlus Design Solutions acknowledges trademarks or registered trademarks of other organizations for their respective products and services.
For more information, contact: Nanette Collins Public Relations for ProPlus Design Solutions (617) 437-1822 Email Contact
