European design houses to join new EUROPRACTICE 'IC service alliance' program

Citation

(1999), "European design houses to join new EUROPRACTICE 'IC service alliance' program", Microelectronics International, Vol. 16 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/mi.1999.21816aab.005

European design houses to join new EUROPRACTICE 'IC service alliance' program

European design houses to join new EUROPRACTICE "IC service alliance" program

A number of selected design houses across Europe will be invited to join the "Europractice IC Service Alliance". The aim is to offer EUROPRACTICEcustomers a total ASIC solution including design services. This will add a new dimension to the services currently available, which include low cost prototyping and production, packaging and test.

Organisations that qualify for the design network are expected benefit from the average annual throughput to the IC Service of 500 ASIC projects.

The first round of invitations, due out this month, will be issued to the 20+ design houses which have already collaborated with the IC Service on past projects and can offer experience in designing for the range of manufacturing processes available through EUROPRACTICE. Other design houses will be considered for membership once they have completed a small volume project in conjunction with the service.

The IC Service has recently added a number of new technologies to its portfolio including 0.35µ CMOS A/D and 0.8µ SiGe. Technologies available through EUROPRACTICE are offered by Alcatel Microelectronics, Austria Mikrosysteme (AMS), GEC-Marconi, Newport Wafer Fab (NWL), TEMIC and Thesys, offering solutions in CMOS, BICMOS, GaAs and gate array.