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General >> Tech Talk >> quality management in IC design
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Message started by topquark on Feb 16^th, 2012, 5:32am

Title: quality management in IC design
Post by topquark on Feb 16^th, 2012, 5:32am

Hi folks,
As stated in the subject line, I'm interested in particularly the "quality tools & methods" applied in IC design rather than those followed by foundries for manufacturing.

Any experience anyone with six sigma/lean/ kaizen or whatever in the context of daily IC design process - please care to share or point to resources?

Thanks,
topquark

Title: Re: quality management in IC design
Post by philcorb on Feb 17^th, 2012, 1:28am

Hi,

This is something that interests me too. Looking at lean or scrum methods, they are highly focused on software development, in my opinion. It seems that IC design cycles are somewhat longer, with individual designs taking numbers of weeks. The problem is how to take these ideas from agile methods and apply them to a different scenario, that of circuit design.

The other area, is how much is known about a project before it starts. The agile methods seem to focus highly on changing specification as the project progresses. I think this approach is less well suited to IC design, as blocks tend to be more interconnected. Deciding to change a transmitter, for example, requires changing many circuits which all interact with one another. In other words, change costs more in IC design than in software.

I would be interested to hear about other people's experiences with this.

Title: Re: quality management in IC design
Post by ywguo on Oct 11^th, 2012, 5:28am

Hi,

This is interesting. What is your criteria of quality management in IC design? Does it mean deliver to the market in tiime? Design a chip without functional error? Or produce ICs with 99.7% yield?

Yawei