MOSIS is a low-cost prototyping and small-volume production service
for
VLSI circuit development. Since 1981, MOSIS has fabricated more than
50,000 circuit designs for commercial firms, government agencies, and
research and educational institutions around the world.
A Single Interface to the Semiconductor Industry
MOSIS provides designers with a single interface to the constantly
changing technologies of the semiconductor industry. Mask
generation, wafer fabrication, and device packaging are contracted
to leading industry vendors.
Low Cost
MOSIS keeps the cost
of fabricating prototype quantities low by aggregating multiple
designs onto one mask set. This allows customers to share overhead
costs associated with mask making, wafer fabrication, and
assembly. MOSIS offers minimum (e.g. 40 die) and medium (500, 2000
die, etc.) quantities within the regularly scheduled (typically
monthly) multiproject
runs. Dedicated runs (also known as COT or Customer Owned Tooling)
runs are available for all processes. Dedicated runs can be scheduled
to start at any time.
Access to Technology
MOSIS provides access to a wide variety of
semiconductor processes offered
by many different foundries.
Compatibility with Tools and Libraries
A variety of design flows (digital,
analog, mixed-signal) can be used with a number of different CAD
tools, technology files, design kits, libraries and IP to create
designs for processes accessed by MOSIS.
