Granted Patent B2

US 7,197,723 · App. 10/953,480 · Granted Mar 27, 2007

Abstract

Claims (16)

1. In a system including a plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities, each of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities having a respective manufacturing process requiring semiconductor specific design information in a corresponding diverse format, a method for supplying data to each of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities in an appropriate format comprising:

establishing a database for each of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities, the database identifying the appropriate format for each of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities;

receiving semiconductor specific design information;

converting the received semiconductor specific design information in accordance with an appropriate format for one of selected ones of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities; and

providing a respective tapeout to said one of the selected ones of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities, each tapeout comprising the received semiconductor specific design information formatted in an appropriate format for said one semiconductor manufacturing facility receiving the tapeout.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the semiconductor specific design information includes a desired number of semiconductor devices to be produced, the method further comprising:

determining a production availability for each of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities; and

selecting at least one of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities to manufacture a semiconductor device based on the desired number of semiconductor devices to be produced and the production availability of the at least one of the plurality of diverse semiconductor manufacturing facilities.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, before providing a respective tapeout, ensuring that providing the converted received semiconductor specific design information is not prohibited by a regulatory agency.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising, before providing a respective tapeout, ensuring that any intellectual property rights associated with the converted semiconductor specific design information are properly licensed.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the receiving the semiconductor specific design information comprises:

providing a generic electronic form to be completed by a semiconductor designer; and

receiving a completed version of the generic electronic form from the semiconductor designer for a semiconductor specific design.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the converting the received semiconductor specific design information comprises:

extracting semiconductor specific design data from a received completed version of the generic electronic form; and

populating a facility specific form with the semiconductor specific design data from the generic electronic form.

Assignments (11)