Partner Details
Moortec Semiconductor Ltd
7 Research Way, Plymouth Science Park, Plymouth, Devon, PL6 8BT,
United Kingdom
www.moortec.com
Partner Overview
Established in 2005, Moortec provides compelling embedded subsystem IP solutions for Process, Voltage & Temperature (PVT) monitoring, targeting advanced node CMOS technologies on 40nm, 28nm, 16nm, 12nm and 7nm. Moortec’s in-chip sensing solutions support the semiconductor design community’s demands for increased device reliability and enhanced performance optimization. Moortec provides excellent support for IP application, integration and device test during production. Moortec’s high-performance analog and mixed-signal IP designs are delivered to ASIC and System on Chip (SoC) technologies within the datacenter, consumer, automotive and IoT sectors.
Moortec’s business model is to supply ‘tried and tested’ and readily available off-the-shelf IP circuit solutions to chip developers wishing to optimize the performance and reliability of their SoC designs.
As a company Moortec are actively helping to solve the challenges faced by designers of today’s cutting-edge technological products, enabling optimization schemes and extending device reliability. With advances in CMOS technology, and the scaling of transistor channel lengths to nanometer (nm) dimensions, the density of digital circuits per unit area of silicon has increased as has the process variability of devices manufactured.
The increase in digital logic (or gate) density, which equates to an increase in power density, is a major contributor to the heating of semiconductor devices manufactured on advanced node CMOS technologies. On-chip temperature monitoring is used for performance optimization, an example being Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) where, depending on the thermal conditions, system clocks and voltage supplies can be varied to optimize either the speed of logical operations or power consumed by the device.
Process induced variations in circuit delays have begun to significantly adversely affect chip performance and power consumption. A statistical analysis of each device would show a process variability, or spread, that when compared to historical CMOS technologies is wider (worse) for advanced technology nodes. To address this, manufacturers have to design their Systems-on-Chip (SoC) to over-compensate for unwanted variability arising from manufacturing processes.
Increased logic gate density, increased track and via impedances and process variability has led to significant voltage (IR) drops across advanced node devices. Together with an increasingly noisy environment, the need to monitor core supplies on-chip has become desirable to ensure that operating conditions are acceptable to the complex systems in today’s devices.
Products/Services
Moortec Embedded Temperature Sensor on TSMC 7FF
The low power junction Temperature Sensor which has been developed to be embedded into ASIC designs. It can be used for a number of different applications including DVFS, device lifetime enhancement, device characterization and thermal profiling.
Moortec PVT Controller on TSMC 7FF
The sophisticated PVT Controller with AMBA APB interfacing, which supports multiple monitor instances, statistics gathering, a production test access port as well as other compelling features.
Partnership Solutions
Moortec’s complete 7nm Embedded In-Chip Monitoring Subsystem IP for Process, Voltage and Temperature Sensing, has been used by Achronix to optimize performance and increase reliability for their 4th generation of stand alone Speedster FPGA.