Amsterdam, Netherlands: The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) launched what it claims is the foundry industry’s first mixedsignal/ radio-frequency reference design kit (MS/RF RDK). The RDK, which will initially target 65nm process technology, aims to accelerate analogue, mixed-signal, and RF designs and RF SoC verification and integration.
The design kit is the result of collaboration between TSMC and Cadence Design Systems. It helps with full chip verification of SoCs with both analogue, mixed-signal, and digital content. The kit enables a top-down MS/RF design methodology and a system-level simulation flow to reduce design cycle time and encourage IP reuse.
The reference design in the RDK consists of a fractional-N phaselocked loop (PLL).