CAD Design Software
Bringing Unmatched Flexibility to IC Packaging

With the advancing functionalities of integrated circuits (IC), there has been an industry-wide push toward more efficient packaging to optimize their performance. Semiconductor manufacturers look for innovative electronic design automation (EDA) software with the flexibility to simulate various design scenarios and test the manufacturability of complex IC packaging structures.

CAD Design Software’s (CDS) EDA tool for advanced electronic circuit design is fulfilling this need through technological innovation.

“Built by designers for designers, our easily customizable software enables users to build advanced IC packaging structures with utmost flexibility,” says Geoffrey Sylvester, director of software development at CAD Design Software.

Why Flexibility Matters

In a time-is-everything world, designers need to open a packaging design, make the modifications, check the netlist before running a design rule checking (DRC) test, and clear it for manufacturing, as soon as possible.

But whenever they want to customize the design to test the manufacturability in a virtual environment, they hit a roadblock, as traditional EDA software does not allow the flexibility to explore beyond a set number of design options.

For instance, a ball grid array (BGA) has multiple components, like electrical pads, net pads, and die bumps of varying shapes and sizes. If the designer wants to modify or create custom packaging for one of these components in traditional EDA software, they face numerous challenges when experimenting with offbeat shapes, reusing a design, or importing and exporting artworks between files of different formats.

CDS’s custom software is a boon in these situations as it uses a hierarchical object construction for block and design rule structures. It allows the encapsulation of complex designs into smaller, manageable blocks, making it easier to adapt the design to different product requirements without redesigning the entire unit. This modularity also facilitates design reuse, along with easier debugging.

The software supports vector artwork, allowing designers to virtually draft any shape instead of being constrained by a set number of options.

If they want to design an abstract shape and add pins, electrical net points, and other components, they can do it on the fly using the CDS’s proprietary custom tools. They can also break into the existing design and quickly add new dies, wire bonds, and other components. The design can then be saved and reused later, or be opened by another designer for editing.

“Users can design packages of their choice, all while maintaining design integrity. They do not lose any information for thinking outside the box,” says Sylvester.

After preparing the layout, designers can run a thorough netcheck to verify the connectivity of electrical pathways that interconnect various components and nodes within the package. The software’s Advanced DRC module then verifies all complex lead frame and wire bonding design rules.

An automatic wire bonding design with output to popular wirebonding data formats and 3D height and crossover checking is included, and can insert single, stacked, and side-by-side dies and automatically wire bond them to any lead frame blank using complex rules or predefined netlists. Existing lead frame blanks or populated lead frames can be incorporated from any source for subsequent processing.

Upholding User-Friendliness

Apart from being feature-rich, the EDA software ranks high on intuitiveness. With years of experience as designers, the CDS team was able to assure the software is easily operable by any designer. It set up a number of tools, commands, and procedures that best suit their needs.

There is no big learning curve. The software’s intuitive environment allows a designer to immediately recognize the tools and know how the system works. After downloading and licensing the software, users are greeted by a dialog box asking them to prepare a custom design environment. They need to fill in the details on the type of package or design they want to work on and the layers they need. The software prepares the entire environment for them. Users can start from scratch, design a layout, import files, or work off a legacy design. It is as fast as that.

Users who face difficulty using the software are guided by built-in assistance systems comprising extensive tutorials that follow an end-to-end design flow. Ther user-friendly design enables them to take a deeper dive into how the software works and discover many important commands and processes.

For users seeking additional assistance, the CDS team offers online and phone call support to guide them through use cases and answer all their questions. The team also offers training courses to enable users to gain a thorough understanding of how they can fit their design flow into the software. Either the client can send their designers to CDS’s facilities in Redwood City, California, or team members can travel to client locations for custom training classes.

Spearheading New-Age EDA

The most notable examples of CDS’s exceptional products and are its custom programming services.

Amid ever-evolving technological developments in the semiconductor packaging industry, where designers need to keep up with ever-evolving rules and layouts, it is not always possible to use software right out of the box. CDS builds customized products for its clients while incorporating all the latest rules.

One instance was when it partnered with Tessera Technologies, a company developing an advanced, micro-BGA (µBGA) flash RAM for digital cameras, USB storage, and other devices. These little chips have small, complex leads with varying values for length, width, and cutting angles. Every time they processed a batch, the values would be different.

CDS developed a tailored parametric program. As soon as it was delivered, all the client needed to do was appoint a designer and enter a number of values. The program generated a custom lead applicable to a particular batch.

The ability to simply enter values and gather leads saved the client days of designing semiconductor packages. What’s more, the values could also be checked against a netlist, DRC, or their specific manufacturing rules.

Likewise, the special design and Gerber package CDS designed for a major U.S. LTCC foundry allowed it to reduce their tooling generation time for complex ceramic designs from 40 to 80 hours to only two to eight hours. It has led to significant savings in cost, production flow and quality of their LTCC products.

Having assisted multiple companies in gaining time and cost efficiency over the years, CDS is now planning to increase awareness around bond wire technology. Across the semiconductor packaging sector, industry experts are concerned about who has a better bond wire design, a more advanced machine, maximum output, and the ability to design a layout and output it all at the same time. CDS addresses this market development by adding a new feature that allows it to export its design layouts to leading bond wire machines.

It is also enthused by the belief that collaborations with leading technology companies will help produce the best and most accurate designs. Since 1995, when CDS started building custom software programs in partnership with leading IC manufacturers, it has been partnering with most EDA software giants to push the boundaries of IC package designing.

Semiconductor manufacturers looking for the most powerful toolkit for designing, analyzing, and optimizing IC packaging structures to maintain the highest levels of flexibility, reliability, and manufacturability can turn to CDS’s cutting-edge software and services.