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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: Elmer who wrote (46447)	1/18/1999 12:36:00 AM
From: Yousef	Read Replies (1) of 1571939

Elmer, Re: " ... what kind of speed path "mask problem" could be fixed in just the top metal layers, when it clearly didn't affect their ability to produce slower product? No one has presented a reasonable case, imho." Elmer, I will present just such a case ... BTW, I have seen this done before. Typically a speed path that prevents a part from working at a high speed (say 400mhz) works just fine at lower frequencies. This speed path usually is just slightly marginal at the high frequency. Thus, a slight change in either the drive currents (Idsat) or the RC (Resistance & Capacitance) can increase the margin to where the "speedpath" no longer limits the chip. I have seen designers take a "speedpath" routed in lower level metal and move that up to the thicker (lower Resistance) levels to provide more margin. BTW, this requires more than one mask to be changed (sometimes all the interconnect levels), but doesn't require any frontend changes. Re: " This seems like a real kludge to me as a real fix probably have included lower level mask plates as well." Can't argue with you there, Elmer ... This is not an "eloquent" way of designing ... More like "trial and error". Make It So, Yousef

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