Sondrel Releases 5nm Design Work for 5nm Nodes

February 08, 2021

News

Sondrel announced it has released a 5nm design work in an effort to support foundries that offer 5nm nodes.

The company said its reason for moving to the 5nm node is due to the increase in performance, which is credited to the smaller distances that increase operational speeds. In regard to leading-edge chips, the increase in performance justifies moving to smaller nodes. This is especially true with the decrease in unit cost that’s associated with reduced silicon real estate and the power demand being less for the same functionality.

An example of the design intricacies of the ultra-small nodes provided by a company press release is as follows:

The resistance of the metal layers varies from the lower to the upper. In an ideal design, the lower, thinner layers with the higher resistance are used for local/short connections and the mid and high levels for longer distances. However, in the real world, there can be areas of congestion where all the high, fast levels are already fully utilized forcing the tool to use the lower slower layers, causing timing closure issues that have to be addressed in the design.

For more information, visit www.sondrel.com.