SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- A group of 10 companies today announced an initiative to promote a new chip-interconnect concept that allows functions on ICs to be wired together diagonally instead of traditional layouts using right-angle interconnects--which often resemble city-street grids.
The new interconnect concept--called X Architecture--promises to speed chip performance, lower power consumption, and simplify IC layouts by reducing interconnects more than 20%, according to the group.
X Architecture supporters said initial evaluations show diagonal interconnects will deliver simultaneous improvements of at least 10% in chip performance, 20% less power dissipation, and 30% more chips per wafer for complex, multiple-metal-layer ICs--such as systems-on-chip (SoC) designs.
Initial members of the "X Initiative" include Dai Nippon Printing, DuPont Photomasks, Applied Materials' Etec Systems Inc., KLA-Tencor, Numerical Technologies, PDF Solutions, Simplex Solutions, Tensilica, Toshiba, and Virtual Silicon Technology.
In a separate announcement today, Simplex Solutions Inc. in Sunnyvale and Toshiba Corp. in Tokyo said they had collaborated for more than two years on the feasibility and development of the X Architecture. The two companies said they have completed the design of a RISC processor core as the X Architecture design. Toshiba expects to use the X Architecture in additional designs starting in 2002.
"We believe that the benefits of this new architecture are so great that within a few years, most designs with five or more metal layers will be implemented using the X Architecture," said Susumu Kohyama, senior vice president of Toshiba.
Simplex officials said the company recognized the opportunity for achieving diagonal interconnects for IC products three years ago and began working on new design technologies to ease the job of using such an interconnect architecture.
According to officials, Simplex's "liquid routing technology"--based on gridless, octilinear routing--makes X Architecture chips possible for the first time. The company said its radically different approach to routing -- with interconnects unconstrained by a grid and able to move in any of eight directions -- enables more direct connection between any two transistors on a chip compared to the traditional right-angle grid approach.
The X Architecture group is inviting other companies to join the initiative during a public meeting on June 19 during the Design Automation Conference in Las Vegas.
