Glossary
of advICoIndex: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A
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B
Circuit for generation of a temperature-stabilized reference voltage by means of the so-called bandgap technique.
Semiconductor technology which uses bipolar transistors and is different from CMOS technology.
See also: CMOS technology, BiCMOS technologySemiconductor technology which combines bipolar and CMOS transistors.
See also: bipolar technology, CMOS technology
C
Semiconductor technology which uses CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) transistors and is different from bipolar technology.
See also: bipolar technology, BiCMOS technology
D
Semiconductor technology specific extension of IC design software. IC design software requires specific informations of the target semiconductor technology for which the chip is to be designed (e. g. design rules, simulation models etc.). A design kit represents a database which provides all necessary informations plus additional design routines and aids.
E
EDA is an abbreviation for "Electronic Design Automation". EDA software is software for computer-aided design of electronic circuits.
Abbrev. for "Eye Diagram Monitor".
See also: Eye Diagram MonitorElectronic circuit developed by advICo which enables the in-service measurement of very fast digital signals (currently up to 43 Gbps). With the Eye Diagram Monitor the signal quality in fiber-optic systems can be continuously measured. In combination with a microcontroller and an optical or electronic equalizer signal distortion in the system can be adaptively compensated.
See also: polarization-Mode Dispersion
F
The attribute fabless means "without a fab". Fab stands for semiconductor fabrication facility.
Specific business model in the microelectronics industry. A fabless semiconductor company is an IC provider which develops and markets ICs and fabricates its ICs externally. Well-known examples of fabless semiconductor companies are Nvidia, VIA und AMCC.
Specific business model in the microelectronics industry. The fabless design house is a development services provider. The design house develops chips on behalf of customers. The chips are fabricated by the customer or another company.
Plastic or quartz fiber. Fiber is used communication technology because of its excellent signal transfer characteristics (little attenuation, high bandwidth).
See also: fiber-optic data transmission systemData transmission system in which data is transmitted by means of pulsed light via fiber. By means of fiber-optic data transmission systems data can be transmitted at much higher data rates than by satellite, wireless or copper-wire transmission systems. The current network infrastructure for Internet, fax, and telephone is based on fiber-optic data transmission systems.
G
Abbrev. for "Graphic Design Station II". GDSII is a proprietary data format from Cadence Design Systems for exchange of graphical two-dimensional data. It has become a de-facto standard for the exchange of IC layout data.
See also: Layout Design, Photomask, Tape-OutAbbrev. for Germanium
See also: GermaniumSemiconductor material.
See also: Silicon-Germanium
H
I
Abbrev. for "Integrated Circuit".
Abbrev. for "Intellectual Property"
See also: Intellectual Property, Semiconductor Intellectual Property
IP generally refers to material or immaterial results of research and development work. A well-known example of IP is the patent.
In the microelectronics industry IP or Semiconductor IP usually refers to design and fabrication data, i.e. circuit design information and mask layout data.
As with patents the commercial use of IP is reserved to the IP owner and licensors.
See also: IP-provider, Semiconductor Intellectual Property, mask data
Refers to design and fabrication data of a circuit core of an IC.
See also: IP, Intellectual Property, Semiconductor Intellectual Property, IP-cellSpecific business model in the microelectronics industry. An IP-provider develops electronic circuits or circuit parts and provides the ciruit design and fabrication data to customers. Customers will then fabricate the circuit as it is or integrated it as parts of a larger circuit design. The IP-provider business model is widely used in the semiconductor industry. Examples for companies who market products as IP-providers are e. g.:ARM, Dolby, MIPS, Motorola, Intel, Infineon, IBM, Parthus, Rambus, Philips, Ericsson etc.
See also: IP, Intellectual Property, Semiconductor Intellectual Property, IP-Core, IP-Cell mask data, fabless design house, fabless semiconductor companyRefers to design and fabrication data of a comparably small circuit part of an IC.
See also: IP-core, IP, Intellectual Property, Semiconductor Intellectual Property
J
K
L
Semiconductor laser device. Laser diodes are cheap laser devices with very small dimensions. They are used in Audio-CD-players, CD-ROM-drives and fiber-optic data transmission systems.
See also: fiber-optic data transmission systemLayout design refers to the design of the geometric-physical structure of an chip. The result of the layout design is a set of photomasks. The layout design is followed by the tape-out.
See also: photomask, tape-out
M
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N
O
P
Abbrev. for "Printed Circuit Board".
Abbrev. for "polarization-mode dispersion".
See: polarization-mode dispersionPhotolithographical mask. Photomasks are used for the structuring of semiconductor wafers for the fabrication of ICs. In principle the masks are thin glass carriers on which the structures of the different levels of an integrated circuit are exactly mapped. A complete set of photomasks contains all information for the fabrication of an integrated circuit with a specific semiconductor technology.
See also: WaferSpecial form of dispersion which is characterized by the effect that different polarization-modes of the transmitted light beam have different propagation velocities. In fiber-optic data transmission links this leads to signal distortion in the fiber.
See also: fiber, fiber-optic data transmission system
Q
R
Abbrev. for "radio-frequency board". This refers to a circuit board on which signals are transmitted at high frequencies with little degradation. Design of RF-boards require special layout and signaling techniques as well as special board materials.
S
Schematic Design refers to the design of an electronic circuit on the basis of a schematic. In IC design the schematic or cell design is usally followed by the layout design.
See also: Layout Design.Semiconductor IP or simply IP refers to design and fabrication data, i.e. circuit design information and mask layout data of complete circuits or circuit parts.
See also: Intellectual Property, IP, SIP, IP-provider, mask dataAbbrev. for Silicon.
See also: SiliconSemiconductor material and base material of most ICs.
Compound semiconductor material which allows to fabricate transistors with excellent high-frequency characteristics.
Abbrev. for Silicon-Germanium.
See also: Silicon-GermaniumAbbrev. for "Semiconductor Intellectual Property".
See also: Semiconductor Intellectual Property
T
After the layout design mask data is converted in a standard data format (GDSII), stored, and sent to the semiconductor fabrication facility. There a set of photomasks is generated from the mask data.
See also: layout design, photomask, GDSIIDuring top-level design of a chip different circuit architectures are compared to each other and one is chosen. The result of the top-level design is a block diagram with all cirucit blocks and their specifications.
See also: schematic design, layout design, tape-out
U
V
W
Silicon disk on which the different processing steps of the semiconductor fabrication process are applied.
Abbrev. for "Wireless Local Area Network".
X
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