Stanford selects Europractice IC service for low volume production of highly specialized ASIC

Citation

(1999), "Stanford selects Europractice IC service for low volume production of highly specialized ASIC", Microelectronics International, Vol. 16 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/mi.1999.21816cab.019

Stanford selects Europractice IC service for low volume production of highly specialized ASIC

Stanford selects Europractice IC service for low volume production of highly specialized ASIC

Keyword Europractice

Sourcing the right production partner for a mixed signal ASIC design was just one of the challenges set by the latest high-energy physics project at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), a national basic research laboratory, operated by Stanford University under a contract from the United States Department of Energy.

The project aims to probe the structure of matter at sub-atomic scales, an exercise that demands absolutely precise detection in order to measure the momentum and energy of particles accurately and to determine their nature. A ten-nation international consortium has been engaged in the construction of the particle detector at a new facility built by SLAC in collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.

The BABAR detector that will provide the measurements at this facility comprises a nested set of detector sub-systems, one of which is the caesium iodide electromagnetic calorimeter (EMC). The EMC detector must fit into a barrel shaped container surrounding the chamber. Many small units are therefore required to provide 360 degrees coverage. To satisfy the requirements for size, power dissipation and very specialised function, a mixed signal ASIC solution was called for.

Through Stanford's links with IMEC, one of Europe's leading centers for microelectronics research, it identified that the Europractice IC service could fulfil its needs both in terms of specialised function, and equally important, in its small production requirement for 3,000 tested parts. Europractice IC service partner FhG-IIS helped to source fabrication in the AMS 1.2 micron BICMOS process for both prototypes and production quantities and provided full mixed mode testing of the 18.8mm² devices.

For further information please contact Dr Carl Das, Europractice IC Service, IMEC, Kapeldreef 75, B-3001, Leuven, Belgium. Tel: +32 16 281 248; Fax: +32 16 281 584; E-mail: das@imec.be