Daniel Nenni

Talk about a giant game of monopoly, probably one of the most entertaining panels of the 46^th Design Automation Conference was: Will Interoperable PDKs Fly in a Stodgy Analog World? The real question here is will TSMC be able to break EDA tool strong holds for the greater good of semiconductor design enablement?

A Process Design Kit (PDK) is the interface between semiconductor design tools and the semiconductor manufacturing process. For every process node there will be multiple PDKs to support the different tool vendors. Multiply that by dozens of process variations and you get millions of dollars in foundry overhead expense. Closed PDKs also allow an EDA vendor to dominate a given market segment. For example: the analog design world is dominated by the Cadence Virtuoso franchise which maintains an 80%+ market share by locking customers into a Cadence proprietary PDK technology, specifically, the Cadence PCell (parameterized cell) and the Skill scripting language.

Like any other industry, EDA standards initiatives have been failing since the beginning of time. Vendors need to lock customers into a set of products to keep the ASP (average selling price) high, which of course suppresses innovation by locking other companies out. So the trick is for the top EDA companies to participate in standards initiatives when it helps them, to block them when it does not, but most importantly pretend you are not trying to monopolize when of course you are.

Accellera was a token EDA standards organization that supported a mix of user and vendor standards. It is less constrained than a real standards organization like IEEE, so it is a veritable sandbox for the big EDA standards cats. In 2003 Accellera announced an Open Kit Initiative to standardize PDKs, members included the top EDA, IP, and semiconductor companies, plus TSMC and other foundries. The only thing accomplished by this initiative was the website. Accellera recently merged with the Spirit Consortium, which to me is just putting more sand in the box.

Enter TSMC:

TSMC Launches First Advanced Technology Interoperable Process Design Kit Industry-Wide Collaborative Development Effort Delivers First Unified iPDK for 65nm Process Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C. – July 21, 2009 – Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd. (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today announced the release of the semiconductor industry’s first interoperable process design kit (iPDK) for advanced technology…

Other than removing millions of dollars of expenses from the TSMC financials, iPDKs will increase competition between EDA tool vendors spurring innovation. It will also strengthen TSMC’s position as the leading  innovator in the merchant semiconductor manufacturing business. Of course TSMC needs to keep their ASPs above industry average so this is also a monopolistic move.

“The iPDK is a long-awaited solution to many of the design problems that have delayed new technology and tool adoption. Multiple and/or incompatible PDKs on proprietary custom design databases have limited design reuse and portability, and has resulted in high development, maintenance and support costs for all ecosystem partners including TSMC,” explains ST Juang, senior director of design infrastructure marketing at TSMC. “The interoperable design kit will enable higher level of innovation and differentiation for our customers in full custom, analog, and mixed-signal designs.”

If not for TSMC, open PDKs would never happen, the EDA industry would continue business as usual, whining about standards, but doing nothing about it. Other foundries are certainly at risk if they do not adopt the iPDK framework, believe me, there is no stopping TSMC on this one. The only risk I see with iPDK is Apple taking issue with the name.