Tekmos Talks
A Newsletter for the Semiconductor Industry
 March 2014
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Welcome to Tekmos Talks March. This month we will share news about our TK80C186EC processors, SOI parts, and introduce a Tekmos team member.
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From the Desk of the President
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 | Lynn Reed, President
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TK80C186EC Processors We shipped our first TK80C186EC processors in February. There was a lot of effort behind that statement. We started with our 80C186EB processor, and added the DMA channels, and changed the interrupt controller to the 8259A style. There were a few other changes, such as adding power-down modes in the clock generator. Plus, we had to make the design work on a process from a different fab. And that entailed the creation of physical and simulation libraries. There was a lot of work and now we have the first part. The next step is to transfer the part from engineering into production. There is a combination of product engineering, test engineering, and marketing efforts. The product engineering task is to characterize the part, and verify that the measured performance lies with the design limits, and exceeds the original data sheet limits. Since we use newer processes on all of our replacement parts, it is never an issue to exceed the original data sheet. But it is good to know that actual distribution of our parts, since we set the test limits based on that distribution. This way, we can fail a part that falls outside of the normal distribution, even though it may meet the original part specifications. The next step is to release the test program. Our test programs typically consist of a Iddq test, followed by two passes of the functional patterns. One pass is at a high voltage, and the other is at the lowest specified voltage. These passes also check input levels and AC specifications. Then we have special passes to measure the output current levels and input high impedance. Once the test engineer is happy with the test, it is released for production. The marketing of the part means that we will create a web page for it, post the data sheet, and enter it into the Google ad-words program. And we will write an article about this for our newsletter. Which is what this is, and so now we are done.
For more information on inventory or orders, please contact Bob Abrams, Vice President of Sales & Development or call 512-342-9871512-342-9871
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Meet Tekmos
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 Andy Chaudoir, Director of Quality How long have you been at Tekmos? I have been working at Tekmos since June of 2011. I was asked by Jon Gehm (Director of Production) to help get Tekmos ISO 9001:2008 certified and have been here ever since. What are your responsibilities here at Tekmos?
My responsibilities lie mainly in the quality realm. We have an annual quality calendar that includes an exhaustive review of all of our quality documents, an internal audit schedule, management reviews and training. I also ensure that our test equipment is calibrated and that our logs are properly maintained. I also handle a good bit of the shipping responsibilities.
What are your favorite tasks or projects to work on here at Tekmos? My favorite projects are the ones where we create something that never existed before. The engineers and designers do this all the time with chip design. I got to help create a quality system basically from the ground up. In the quality world it is satisfying to discover a need and tailor a solution that satisfies that need. But, my secret favorite task is to sneak onto the test floor and lend a hand. It's rewarding to take parts from our incoming shelf and move them through test, bake, dry pack and finally into finished goods where they can be packed and shipped to our customers. What project are you working on now? I am currently working to complete our annual document review. Can you offer any suggestions to Tekmos clients to make their experience more efficient and successful?
I really encourage our clients to come out and "kick our tires." This usually means that we get audited but that process really gives them an idea of who Tekmos is and what our capabilities are. The audit process also makes our quality system better by forcing continual improvement.
Please tell us about your professional and educational background. I have a BBA in Finance and International Business from the University of Texas. I also recently received my Master's Degree in Education from Texas State University. I've worked as a financial analyst, a compliance officer for two brokerage firms, a senior trainer for several Fortune 500 companies and in sales. I also like to get out and see the country. This wanderlust has taken me to the Arctic Circle in December ...... alone! During summers while in college I worked as an over the road truck driver for a moving company and as the truck/trailer driver for the University of Texas Crew. Those two positions along with a few personal adventures have taken me to 49 states in the US. The only state I haven't been to is North Dakota.
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SOI
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SOI Process Revision
Tekmos made our first SOI parts two years ago. When we set up the first gate array, we made some decisions that in hindsight were not good. More specifically, we established a routing grid that increased density (good), but at the cost of potential DRC errors from the autorouter (bad). We had done this previously with our 0.35u process, and it resulted in 3 or 4 DRC errors per chip. These were easily corrected by hand, and was not a problem. In our first SOI ASIC, we had thousands of DRC errors, and it took weeks to correct. This was a real problem, in that it was always possible that we might find ourselves with a future chip that had so many errors that it might not be possible to correct all of them. We chose to use a slightly larger routing grid which allows the router to work without any DRC errors being created.
We had a second problem in that we set the gate width too small. As a first order approximation, the gate width does not matter. Since gates drive gates, doubling the width doubles the load, and so the speed remains the same. But there is another component to load and that is the interconnect capacitance. If the capacitive load is too great, then we have to insert buffers in the wire to maintain speed. Increasing the transistor width reduces the need for these buffers, and simplifies the place and route task.
These actions work but it also requires us to re-layout hundreds of cells in our cell library. But once that is done, we now have a strong library that will allow us to exploit the 250C market with high temperature microcontrollers, FPGAs, and memories.
For more information on manufacturing, contact our main office 512-342-9871512-342-9871
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We appreciate our customers. Tekmos is meeting innovation every day for tomorrow's challenges.
Sincerely,
Lynn Reed, President
4120 Commercial Center Drive, Suite 400Austin, TX 78744Phone: (512) 342-9871Fax: (512) 342-9873
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