Mentor achieves certifications for TSMC’s leading-edge 3nm process technology

Mentor, a Siemens business, today announced that TSMC has certified multiple Mentor product lines and tools for the foundry’s recently announced 3nm (N3) process technology.

“Mentor’s recent certifications for our advanced N3 process underscore the value that the company provides for our shared customers and the broader TSMC ecosystem,” said Suk Lee, Senior Director of Design Infrastructure Management Division at TSMC. “We are pleased to see the ongoing certification of a wide range of leading Mentor platforms to help our customers achieve silicon success benefiting from the significant power and performance boost of our most advanced process technologies.”

The Mentor offerings now certified for TSMC’s N3 process include the Analog FastSPICE^™ Platform, which provides leading-edge circuit verification for nanometer analog, radio frequency (RF), mixed-signal, memory, and custom digital circuits.

Mentor has also expanded its support for TSMC’s 2.5/3D offering with Mentor’s Xpedition^™ software, including Xpedition Substrate Integrator for design planning and netlisting and Xpedition Package Designer for layout, now enhanced to meet TSMC’s requirements for InFO-R. In addition, Mentor’s Calibre^® platform 3DStack technology has expanded its support of inter-die LVS for TSMC offerings with support for CoWoS^®-S.

Mentor’s Calibre nmPlatform, which is the global IC verification industry leader, has added further certifications across multiple products for TSMC’s N3 and N5 processes including:

• The Calibre nmDRC^™ and Calibre nmLVS^™ tool suites, which are for IC physical and circuit verification sign-off. Calibre continues to deliver new advancements and functionality at each new process node while delivering industry-leading accuracy, scalability, and turnaround time.
• The Calibre PERC^™ reliability platform, which employs a unique, integrated analysis of both the physical layout and the netlist to automate complex reliability verification checks. Mentor has worked with TSMC to provide a comprehensive capability for ESD (Electrostatic Discharge) and Latch-Up verification.
• The Calibre xACT^™ parasitic extraction solution, which offers the high accuracy required for three-dimensional FinFET structures and gives Mentor and TSMC customers the ability to fully leverage the inherent performance benefits of TSMC’s 3nm offering.

“Mentor and TSMC continue to build on our long track record of delivering world-class solutions for our shared customers,” said Joe Sawicki, executive vice president, Mentor IC EDA. “TSMC’s 3nm process technology is truly state-of-the-art, delivering performance and power efficiency for our worldwide base of mutual customers, and once again proving that Moore’s Law is not dead.”