Pivotal, UMC in foundry pact; Avanti links up on libraries

Pivotal, UMC in foundry pact; Avanti links up on libraries
By Michael Santarini , EE Times
December 6, 1999 (2:17 p.m. EST)
URL: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG19991206S0026

Analog and mixed-signal core provider Pivotal Technologies and foundry UMC Group have signed a multiyear agreement to prove, supply and support a range of Pivotal's Fulcrum analog and mixed-signal cores for deep-submicron system-on-chip designs.

Pivotal (Pasadena, Calif.) also said it has received $10 million in second-round Series B venture funding.

The partners said the foundry agreement will afford developers broader access to proven components that target their deep-submicron process requirements in communications and multimedia markets. The components will be made available for UMC Group's 0.25- and 0.18-micron processes now and for 0.15 micron in the future.

The $10 million financing round was led by the investment arm of Goldman Sachs. Its completion brings Pivotal a total of $14 million in financing to date. The company said the new funds will be used to expand engineering resources.

Visit www.pivotaltech.com or www.umcgroup.com.

---

Avanti Corp. has announced a joint development effort with Worldwide Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (WSMC) to provide Libra-Visa Libraries for the WSMC T14 and C18 foundry processes. Avanti will develop two foundry-process-specific Libra-Visa libraries consisting of standard cells, I/Os and memory compilers.

The Libra-Visa T14 library leverages the WSMC T14 0.18-micron process, which implements an effective gate shrink to 0.14 micron and thus provides a low-power technology solution. The Libra-Visa C18 library will be optimized for WSMC C18, a high-performance 0.18-micron process. Both libraries will be silicon-validated and qualified for the Avanti very deep-submicron SinglePass tool flow.

A pre-silicon-validated release of the Libra-Visa C18 library will be available this month. See www.avanticorp.com.