The 32nd VLSI Design/CAD Symposium was recently held online. The theme of this year’s theme activity is “IC Driven Smart Life Innovation”. There are many excellent lectures in analog and radio frequency, EDA and testing, digital and systems and their emerging technical fields. Suk Lee, vice president of tsmc design technology platform, delivered a theme speech entitled “Moore’s Law and the Fourth Age of Semiconductors”. All attempts to find practical meaning from the myths and turbulent history of the semiconductor industry will attract my attention. As tsmc stated, the fourth era of semiconductors is the era of cooperation. Let’s take a look at the history of the semiconductor industry below.

The first era of semiconductors-IDM
First, the transistor was invented in Bell Laboratories, followed by the first integrated circuit chip of Texas Instruments (TI). When Fairchild Semiconductor developed and designed the first chip integrated circuit chip, things seemed very interesting. Therefore, the first semiconductor era came out-the era of integrated component manufacturers, commonly known as IDM. This is a single enterprise that does all of this-ic design, design scheme infrastructure construction, integrated ic execution and production process technology. My career development originated in the field of design infrastructure construction of IDM named RCA. Suk pointed out that integration and creation are interdependent in IDM. The opportunity to make something new is very exciting. Customized integrated ic is the field of IDM, they have all the infrastructure, technology and staff required for this work. Therefore, customized integrated ic is limited to IDM or companies that have sufficient assets for IDM large-scale development and design. When we entered the second semiconductor era, all this changed.

The second era of semiconductor-ASIC
Companies like LSI Logic and VLSI Technology are the pioneers in this period. Today, the design of infrastructure construction, integrated IC completion and production processes are all provided by ASIC suppliers. During this time, the semiconductor industry gradually disintegrated. With design constraints, a wider group of engineers can design and manufacture customized integrated ICs. Technology has become more and more popular, and the world has since changed.

The third era of semiconductors-foundry production
The third period is essentially the perfection of the second period. The entire process of integrated circuit chip design and production is very challenging. Building an ecosystem where all companies are committed to their core concepts is an effective way to manage complexity. This is what happened in the third period. IC design and completion are undertaken by the fabless semiconductor company, the design infrastructure is undertaken by the EDA company, and the production process is developed and delivered by the chip processing. tsmc is a key pioneer in this semiconductor era.

The Fourth Semiconductor Era-Open Independent Innovation Platform
Look carefully, everyone is back to the starting point. With the continuous improvement of the semiconductor industry, the complexity of semiconductor processing technology and the complexity of semiconductor design have gradually increased. The profound and subtle interactions between semiconductor technology, EDA, IP, and design methods make it increasingly challenging to coordinate with decomposed supply chain management. tsmc is also a pioneer in this semiconductor era.

Enterprises realize that large-scale cooperation and communication are necessary between different parts of the decomposed ecosystem. There must be a way to bring each part closer together to promote better cooperation. Therefore, tsmc developed and designed the Open Independent Innovation Service Platform® (OIP). They started this work a long time ago, when 65-nanometer technology manufacturing was still cutting-edge technology. Today, OIP is a strong and vibrant ecosystem.
The infrastructure provided by tsmc paved the way for improved cooperation and coordination, establishing a virtual IDM among its team members. This brings the best models of single chip and split chip for tsmc users. It changed the development trajectory of the semiconductor industry and gave tsmc substantial core competitiveness.
This type of approach has many benefits. It is particularly effective to perform the function of Design Technical Collaboration Promotion (DTCO). Excellent semiconductor technology requires an ecological chain and a large ecosystem. DCA means design center alliance, and VCA stands for value chain aggregator.

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