Your Design Files Should Come With Your Design

By Scott Rauscher, Chief Innovation Officer, Rogue Valley Microdevices

We have talked with companies building micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) devices who arrived with the same problem. They engaged an established research and development design house, the technical work was solid, and the device performed. Then they went to move the design into production and could not get the layout files. Under the license terms covering the design tools or the design libraries, the finished GDSII layout stayed with the design house. GDSII is the standard format for handing a chip design to a fab, so without it there is no practical way to quote the design anywhere else.

For a company trying to scale, that is a hard place to be. A design that cannot move to a foundry cannot go to production, and the work starts over somewhere else.

We work differently. At Rogue Valley Microdevices, you get your GDSII files at any point in the engagement. You can request them mid-project, at a design review, or at final release. Running wafers with us is not a condition. Your intellectual property (IP) stays yours, the masks stay yours, and if you decide to fabricate somewhere else the design travels with you.

Three Ways to Engage

Design Only. MEMS layout, mask design, and process guidance for teams fabricating in house or with a manufacturing partner they have already chosen. Complete mask set development, alignment marks, and process monitors matched to the fabrication capabilities you are targeting.

Design and Technology Transfer. Design work plus a managed engineering handoff to the foundry you select, covering foundry-compatible layouts, design rule validation, and engineering support through the initial runs.

Design and Fabricate. An integrated path from design into our own fab, with design and process engineers in one facility and rapid iteration between them.

Three Paths After the Design Is Done

Whichever model you choose, the same three options are open once the layout is complete. Fabricate with us in Medford or Palm Bay. Take the design to another foundry. Or run it in your own facility. Start where you are, and the design work carries forward no matter which path you take.

That flexibility is the point. Manufacturing strategy changes, sometimes for reasons well outside engineering, and a design you own is a design you can still use when it does.

Why We Do It This Way

Our designs are validated against empirically measured process distributions from our own fab, so what we hand over is grounded in real manufacturing data rather than theoretical models. We would rather earn the fabrication work by being the right fab for the job than by holding the files.

Rogue Valley Microdevices is a U.S.-based MEMS and semiconductor foundry offering design services and manufacturing from 50mm to 300mm.