Re: [SI-LIST] : Some Semiconductors are Unnecessarily Fast

Robert Tsai ([email protected])
Mon, 12 Jul 1999 14:24:02 -0700

Roy Leventhal wrote:

> Several recent threads have commented that few nets on a board used to be a
> signal integrity challenge in the past and now almost all are.
>
> What we are seeing are a number of instances where the semiconductor companies
> are producing parts with edge rates way faster than the clock and application
> calls for. Parts with 500ps rise times or less and clock periods of 100ns or
> more. SI engineers are seeing more demand for their skills what with shrinking
> geometries and lack of (care? concern?) edge rate control on drivers.
>
> But, this is "make work" and is not the road to world class competitiveness for
> our companies. There are enough real world signal integrity problems for us to
> tackle without any "help" of this sort from the semiconductor manufactures.
>
> Roy Leventhal
>
> **** To unsubscribe from si-list: send e-mail to [email protected]. In the BODY of message put: UNSUBSCRIBE si-list, for more help, put HELP. si-list archives are accessible at http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/si-list ****

Hi Roy,

As many of you already know that the edge rate is directly related to the channel length of the drivers. When the semiconductor technology shrinks its feature sizes from 0.5 to 0.35 to 0.18 um the edge rate goes up accordingly.
Unless special designs are implemented to intentionly slow down the edge rate, the edge rate will keep going up. We are not making everybody's life tough purposely.

Think positively, this is job security for all of you.

Robert Tsai

**** To unsubscribe from si-list: send e-mail to [email protected]. In the BODY of message put: UNSUBSCRIBE si-list, for more help, put HELP. si-list archives are accessible at http://www.qsl.net/wb6tpu/si-list ****