Modeling modern bipolar technologies to insure design for manufacturability

A description is given of an integrated empirical modeling methodology which has been successfully applied in modeling the ASPECT process (Advanced Single Poly Emitter Coupled Technology) to ensure manufacturable circuit designs. The accuracy which has been achieved with this degree of modeling has contributed significantly to realizing `right the first time´ designs on a number of standard cell VLSI ECL (emitter-coupled logic) designs. A comprehensive test chip was used to construct a database composed of both single-point and multipoint measurements along with capacitance voltage behavior, f_T characteristics, and ring-oscillator large-signal characteristics over a broad speed range of power-switching currents. These were analyzed with and without capacitance loads. Corner file models formulated from this characterization in the design of circuits which were manufacturable and achieved correctness on first-pass design of a number of VLSI standard-cell ECL circuits