"Moving into the deep subwavelength lithography era, more and more designs are relying on complex OPC," said Shauh-Teh Juang, senior vice president of marketing and business development for Brion. "The need to correct and verify these designs efficiently during production is more critical than ever. While the IC industry already relies on Tachyon to do this, Tachyon 2.0 provides the necessary computational power and speed for both production and R&D for the next several generations of IC designs."
Tachyon 2.0 builds upon Brion's pioneering Tachyon system, which began shipping four years ago. It provided the first practical alternative to traditional methods of performing OPC and was the most significant advancement in OPC to hit the market in more than a decade. Its successor, Tachyon 2.0, provides a tightly integrated hardware and software platform, bringing greatly improved full-chip optical simulation technology to its users. Tachyon 2.0 improves modeling power by 4x, supporting up to 256 complex optical simulation kernels and up to an 8 micron diameter optical interaction range for 45nm designs.
Tachyon 2.0 also incorporates advancements in hardware-accelerated design that reduce power consumption by more than 50 percent when compared with a first-generation Tachyon system with equivalent computational throughput. All of these improvements and refinements add up to a remarkably improved cost of ownership, as well as advanced capabilities, such as 3D photomask lithography simulation.
"Tachyon 2.0 looks ahead, anticipating and meeting the demands of extreme low k1 lithography design correction and verification," said Jim Koonmen, Brion's vice president of engineering operations. "It supports the advanced computational lithography requirements for the next technology nodes in a platform that delivers the best cost of ownership, computational power and efficiency."
Built with the highest reliability IBM components, Tachyon 2.0 gives users the advantages of a single-source supply for both the hardware and software elements of an OPC correction and design verification system. This approach allows for optimal integration, as well as streamlined support and service without multi-vendor issues.
Brion will deliver beta Tachyon 2.0 systems in March with midyear volume shipments.
As the first system to offer hybrid hardware- and software-dedicated lithography pattern verification, Brion's Tachyon was quickly adopted by the global semiconductor industry. Brion was also the first to deliver a number of advanced computational lithography capabilities, including the first image-based dense simulation, the first hybrid computing platform with coprocessor acceleration and the first in process-window modeling, correction and verification. Today over 20 semiconductor manufacturers utilize Tachyon to verify their designs. There have been more than 50 Tachyon system racks built, and they have processed thousands of critical layers in customers' designs.
Brion's Tachyon has received several awards during the past year, most recently being named as a runner-up in the semiconductor category of the Wall Street Journal's 2006 Technology Innovation Awards. In 2006 Brion was also a recipient of R&D Magazine's R&D 100 Awards, its Tachyon system was recognized as a Semiconductor International Editors' Choice Best Product, and the company was named as a finalist in the prestigious 2006 Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards, presented by EE Times magazine.
About Brion Technologies
Brion Technologies is the worldwide leader in computational lithography for integrated circuit Lithography-Driven Design & Manufacturing. Brion's Tachyon platform, a highly accurate and ultrafast OPC and OPC verification system, enables a unique set of capabilities that addresses the interrelated challenges of design, photomask making and wafer printing for semiconductor manufacturing. Headquartered in Santa Clara, CA, Brion leads the worldwide market for optical proximity correction (OPC) verification and is rapidly expanding in the OPC market. Brion Technologies and ASML signed a definitive merger and acquisition agreement in December 2006. Subject to approval by regulatory authorities, closing is expected in the first quarter of 2007. Following completion of the acquisition, Brion will continue to support its current product offerings and will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of ASML. For further information, visit www.brion.com.
Brion Technologies, Lithography-Driven Design & Manufacturing, and Tachyon are trademarks of Brion Technologies, Inc.
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