Austriamicrosystems to make Triad's mixed-signal structured array
The patent pending technology resembles digital structured ASICs. Primitive circuit elements are fabricated in a structured manner in all but one of the manufacturing process steps. The fundamental difference is that the MSSA technology includes both analogue and digital circuits. Digital logic, analogue amplifiers, resistors, switches and capacitors are included in the array.
Using a single process layer known as the "via", they are interconnected to form an ASIC. Tooling is reduced to one mask layer and the configuration step occurs late in the fabrication process, thus drastically lowering ASIC tooling costs and manufacturing time. Because the design task is to configure a known array or circuit elements, design risk and development time are also reduced.
Triad began work on the architecture with ViASIC in August of 2003 to create electronic design and automation (EDA) tool extensions to ViaPATH, ViASIC’s structured ASIC design software. The first chip design using the MSSA technology is currently being fabricated.
The initial MSSA product platform, known as MSSA-1 is progressing towards production launch in October 2004. It is being fabricated on the Austriamicrosystems in a 0.35micron 2 poly/4 metal mixed-signal process. The MSSA-1 platform contains 24 operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs), 12 buffer amplifiers, 33k configurable logic gates, 18kBytes of ROM and 6kBytes of SRAM.
