R³Logic to advance 3D design flow R&D

R³Logic announced that it has created a new R&D center 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 center will collaborate with STMicroelectronics and with CEA-LETI (Laboratoire d'Electronique et de Technologie de l'Information).

According to Dominique Henoff, advanced technology and innovation director for ST's home video division, within the company's SoC developments, design requirements dictate partitioning functions onto several chips that must be integrated within a single package.

"This engenders a complex system where different tools are used concurrently to treat different aspects of the problem: SoC design, substrate design, signal integrity, thermal management, environmental constraints, RF etc. Right now, all of these problems are handled individually, while the simple movement of an interconnect between two elements can break the entire system. ST sees very favorably R³Logic's solution to build a full 3D design flow that combines multiple point tools to obtain the best solution in a specifications/time and price/performance space," Henoff added.

Laurent Malier, general manager of CEA-LETI said, "The availability of 3D integration capabilities is a major step for a wide range of products. We believe that R³Logic's 3D design solutions will accelerate our developments in 3D chip-package co-design. This is critical because there are no available tools that allow us to manage all of the different aspects of the design flow in an integrated fashion."

Patrick Botti, R³Logic's chief operating officer will serve as general manager of R3-France. Lisa McIlrath, R³Logic's CEO, is very excited about this new center.

"Grenoble is a very vibrant city, and the designers coming out of the schools in the area are top-notch. R3-France will be strategically located right in the heart of Europe where we can effectively participate in multiple European projects, with ST, LETI, Fraunhofer, IMEC and many others," McIlrath said.