CAD tools and foundries to boost microsystems development

International audienceStarting from the 70s, Microelectronics development has been made possible because of the use of CAD tools and because of the availability of foundries for Education/Research and for fabless companies, besides large IC manufacturers. Without such similar boosters, Microsystems might easily remain curiosities, top level prototypes manufactured by researchers, but they would not become industrial products. Education and Research in Microelectronics had taken advantage of CAD tools developed in USA and in France : MAGIC in Berkeley, LUCIE in Grenoble. These tools were provided free of charge. Later, most Universities have been provided with commercial CAD tools. Considering the background on CAD for Microelectronics, a few principles should govern the development of CAD for Microsystems : - CAD for Microsystems should not be fully designed from scratch, but modules available for Microelectronics should be reused when existing ; - a CAD for Microsystems should look familiar to a user of CAD for Microelectronics ; - the "system" user should be distinguished from the "library" designer : only the later one will use specific complex tools ; Concerning the access to silicon, MOSIS in the US and CMP in France have provided in the early 80s facilities for integrated circuits manufacturing. These services have boosted Microelectronics since they allowed Students and Researchers to access professional facilities at a reasonable cost. When turning to Microsystems, the same approach to collectively manufacture microsystems at a low cost will boost Microsystems the same way as Microelectronics has been boosted in the past. Considering the background on Microelectronics MPW, a few principles should govern the development of Microsystems MPW : - Microsystems should be fabricated on industrial production lines, with an additional post-processing for microsystem specific structures. Moreover, it should be made use of production lines already existing for Microelectronics, in order to take advantage of investments made in the past ; - design kits to link CAD for Microsystems and MPW manufacturing have to be provided. These principles for CAD and foundries for Microsystems govern the cooperative research on CAD done at TIMA in Grenoble, at TH Darmstadt and TU Budapest. A design environment allows a continuous design flow which can be seen or considered according to two points of view : the view of a non-specialised system-level designer desiring to create a new microsystem with devices from at least two rather different areas, e.g. micro-mechanical and electronics, and the view of a device designer having expert knowledge on his domain of work, knowledge he makes available to the system level designers. The paper will also address the manufacturing of Microsystems by CMP. It is believed that the principles addressed for CAD and foundries for Microsystems will ensure that Microsystems will be only an evolution of Microelectronics, but Microsystems will ensure an industrial revolution by a massive pervasion of many application fields