CAD framework concept for the design of integrated microsystems

International audienceBesides foundry facilities, CAD-tools are also required to move microsystems from research prototypes to an industrial market. CAD tools of microelectronics have been developed for more than 20 years, both in the field of circuit design tools and in the area of TCAD tools. Usually a microelectronics engineer is involved only in one side of the design: either he deals with application design or he participates in the manufacturing design, but not in both. This is one point that is to be followed in case of microsystem design, if higher level of design productivity is expected. Another point is that certain standards should also be established in case of microsystem design too: based on selected technologies a set of standard components should be pre-designed and collected in a standard component library. This component library should be available from within microsystem design frameworks which might well be established by a proper configuration and extension of existing IC design frameworks. A very important point is the development of proper simulation models of microsystem components that are based on e.g. the FEM results of the pre-design phase and are provided in the form of an analog VHDL script. After detailing the above mentioned considerations we discuss the development work concerning a microsystem design framework. Its goal is to provide a set of powerful tools for microsystem application designers. This future framework will be composed of different industry-standard CAD programs and different design databases which in certain cases are completed with special interfaces and special purpose simulation tools