French focus on 3D packaging for consumer and wireless applications

Leti and R3Logic to Combine Expertise in Three-Year Lab Agreement 

French research lab Leti is teaming up with R3Logic, a leading US 3D IC EDA company to combine their expertise in 3D silicon integration and packaging in France to build 3D IC designs and methodologies for consumer and wireless applications.
3D ICs enable dramatically improved performances at a much lower cost than new, leading-edge CMOS technologies. The creation of these new ICs depends on the availability of new methodologies and skills that require a deep understanding of the overall semiconductor supply chain, including EDA, design technology and fabrication technology. This three-year Leti-R3Logic common lab is aimed at developing 3D-design solutions to accelerate developments in 3D chip-package co-design, including TSV placement and short-loop floor planning, allowing management of all aspects of the design flow in an integrated fashion. “With R3Logic’s presence in Grenoble and Leti’s leading design-and-process-technology research infrastructure, we have the full range of competencies of the ideal ecosystem working together,” said Laurent Malier, CEO of Leti. “We are confident this joint lab will accelerate the adoption of 3D-IC technologies by the semiconductor industry, which will better align its fabrication process, and by the mobile- and consumer-device industries, which will develop more-competitive products.”
“Being closer to world-leading design and technology teams will allow us to accelerate the adoption of our EDA tools,” said Lisa McIlrath, CEO of R3Logic, which opened an R&D centre in Grenoble last year. “We are collaborating with Leti for three reasons: their research and technology expertise will help us accelerate development of our tools, their business model allows us to better protect our IP, and finally, their immersion in a complete ecosystem that concentrates in the same region the full spectrum from R&D in advanced concepts to major global providers of mobile and consumer applications.”
As a major player in the MINATEC excellence centre, Leti operates 8,000-m² state-of-the-art clean rooms, on a 24/7 schedule, on 200mm and 300mm wafer standards. With 1,200 employees, Leti trains more than 150 Ph.D. students and hosts 200 assignees from partner companies and owns more than 1,400 patent families.  R3Logic, founded in 2000 in Massachusetts, specializes in the design of 3D integrated circuits and has developed a unique set of patented EDA tools for 3D integrated circuit design. R3Logic has created a new R&D centre in Grenoble, France, to develop and enhance its design tools for 3D heterogeneous system and system-in-package design. This center is part of a newly created French subsidiary, R3Logic-France, which when fully staffed over the next two years will employ over 20 engineers. The centre will also work in close collaboration with STMicroelectronics.