The partners in the venture are the companies Altair, Siva, Mellanox, Stixpay, Easychip and Sargon. These companies are partners together with Bar-Ilan, the Technion, Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion in a magnet association called HiPer (High Performance SoC Design) which was inaugurated at the beginning of the month
A laboratory currently being built at Bar-Ilan University will help improve the design of "systems on a chip" for the Israeli chip companies Altair, Siva, Mellanox, Stixpay, EasyChip and Sargon. These companies are partners together with Bar-Ilan, the Technion, Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion in a magnet association called HiPer (High Performance SoC Design) which was officially inaugurated this week.
The association combines companies that develop complex chips with advanced technologies, together with leading researchers from academia in the field. The conglomerate combines large public companies, medium-sized companies and one start-up company. The members of the association have a dominant presence in their market segments. They represent annual sales of over a billion dollars, which constitute about 2% of all the exports of goods of the State of Israel. The association's companies employ about 2000 R&D workers in Israel.
As part of the association, the Magnet Administration in the Office of the Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Economy, headed by Ilan Peled, and with the support of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Economy, Dr. Avi Hasson, approved the establishment of a unique laboratory of its kind in the Faculty of Engineering at Bar Ilan University at the Israeli Academy for Design and Testing of Systems on a Chip (SoC) ), which will serve the association's members. The laboratory will be jointly managed by Prof. Alex Fish, head of the nanoelectronics track at the Faculty of Engineering at Bar-Ilan University and Prof. Shmuel Wimer, also from the Faculty of Engineering at Bar-Ilan University.
According to Prof. Fish, the laboratory will work in close cooperation with CAD tool companies, IP suppliers and chip manufacturers, and will continue to work together with the industry even after the end of the association's life. He promises that the lab will produce at least one SOC chip per year.
In Israel, there is a lot going on in the field of semiconductors, next to the design centers of multinational companies (companies such as Intel, Qualcomm and others) there are local companies that develop chips used in various fields, as well as start-up companies.
However, the relative advantage of the Israeli chip companies has eroded in recent years while the competition is increasing. The complexity of developing SoC components increases exponentially as a result of multiple processors and the integration of new functions, which causes an increase in development costs and a lack of resources for infrastructural R&D. At the same time, in the Israeli academy, compared to leading universities in the world, the activity in the field of microchips is lacking both in research and in the training of engineers. One of the main reasons is a lack of researchers and skilled personnel in the Israeli academy. According to Prof. Fish, "It is difficult to retain engineers in the academy, when they are faced with such superior options in industry - especially, of course, in the multinational companies, which is why there are too few researchers."
"We identified these shortcomings, both of the Israeli industry and of the academy, we brought them to the magnet committee chaired by Ilan Peled, and this approved the establishment of the association of these companies and the relevant researchers in the academy, which will advance the field of high-performance VLSI, with the emphasis on Planning systems on a chip. Although each company develops products in other fields, what they all have in common is that these are complete systems realized on a chip. The development of this infrastructure requires time and resources, and instead of each company taking care of it separately, the association will enable the joint development of this infrastructure, and on top of that, each company will add its unique innovation."
The SOC laboratory will be located in a new complex of laboratories for the nanoelectronics track in the Faculty of Engineering. The orbit laboratories cover approximately 370 square meters and include laboratories for chip design, measurements and characterization. In addition to this, they also include an advanced laboratory for the design, production and characterization of graphene devices, managed by Dr. Doron Neve.
Prof. Fish emphasizes that the laboratory will serve not only academic research in the field of chips, but will also serve as a center of knowledge for the industry, and therefore it will be based not only on students and doctoral students (who will of course help it for their research and gain experience for work in the industry) but will employ a number of engineers, with the aim of preserving the The knowledge and not be lost with every change of generations of students.
The budget for the activity of the laboratory, which will deal with both the design of chips and the testing of the chips after their production is between 2.4 and 2.8 million shekels per year, will come from the Ministry of Economy, as well as from the commercial companies that are partners in the association, explains Prof. Fish. "In the first year, we will plan a common generic platform for all companies, and later this platform will be used to examine ideas for improving chip performance, improving the design process, and more.
"The laboratories for the design and measurement of chips were built according to a concept unique to an Israeli academy, according to which each researcher does not get his own research area, but several researchers share a large area and common equipment. The laboratories will include five central research complexes - a joint design laboratory and four dedicated measurement laboratories. The design laboratory will house research students and engineers from all researchers in the field. Measurement laboratories will have advanced equipment for measuring SOC, digital chips, CMOS cameras, chips in the field of security, etc." Prof. Fish says.
"In addition to this, the laboratories will include advanced equipment in the field of chip reliability and inspection, recently donated by the Freescale company. Dr. Yoav Weizman, who ran the same lab at Freescale, now works at Bar Ilan in order to use the lab. Some of the laboratories were built with the aim of being ready to receive future researchers in the field."
