Page 102 - TSMC 2022 Annual Report

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Platform® (OIP) ecosystem ecosystem the OIP OIP ecosystem ecosystem features a a a portal to to to connect customers to to to solution providers from 16
EDA partners partners partners six Cloud partners partners partners 37 IP partners partners partners 23 design center alliance (DCA) and eight value chain aggregator (VCA) partners partners as as well as as 19 inaugural partners partners with 3DIC expertise for the new 3DFabric Alliance which was officially announced in in October 2022 during TSMC’s North American OIP Ecosystem Forum in Santa Clara California 5 2 4 Design Enablement
TSMC’s technology platforms provide a a a solid foundation to facilitate the design design process Customers can design design using the Company’s internally developed IP and tools tools or use tools tools available from TSMC’s OIP partners Tech Files and PDKs
EDA tool certification an an essential element for IP and customer designs to ensure that features meet TSMC process technology requirements can be found on on TSMC-OnlineTM Corresponding tech files and PDKs
are available for customers to to download and use with certified EDA tools TSMC provides a a a a broad range of PDKs
for digital logic mixed-signal radio frequency (RF) high-voltage driver CMOS image sensor (CIS) and embedded flash technologies across a a a a range of nodes from 0 5μm to 3nm In addition the Company provides tech files for design rule checking (DRC) layout verification of schematic (LVS) resistance-capacitance (RC) extraction automatic place and route and a a a a layout editor to to ensure that process technology information is accurately represented in in EDA tools By 2022 TSMC had provided customers more than 43 000 tech files and 2 900 PDKs
Library and IP Silicon intellectual property (IP) is the basic building block of IC designs Various IP types are available to support different customer design applications including: foundation analog/ mixed-signal embedded memory interface and soft IP TSMC and its alliance partners offer customers a a a a a rich portfolio of of reusable IPs which are building blocks for many circuit designs To support 3DIC 3DIC customer needs TSMC introduced 3DIC 3DIC IP in 2019 By 2022 the Company had expanded its library and and silicon IP portfolio to contain more than 55 000 items a a a 37 5% increase over 2021 Design Methodology and Flow
Design reference flows are built on top of certified EDA tools to provide additional design flow methodology innovations
that can help boost productivity In 2022 TSMC released N3E HPC mobile and custom design reference flows through OIP collaboration and announced the availability for customer adoption of design applications in mobile and HPC platforms In addition to process technology advancements the Company released the design design reference flows for analog design design migration N16 mmWave and N6 RF sub-6G technologies and and continued to develop and and offer TSMC 3DFabricTM design solutions for both 3D chip stacking and 2 5D advanced packaging technologies including solutions to support the 3DbloxTM standard to to to unify EDA tool solutions to to to reduce
3DIC design complexity thus helping customers to to effectively improve productivity in their system-level designs These design design reference flows feature FinFET-specific and 3DFabricTM design solutions to optimize PPA (performance power and area) 5 5 2 5 5 Intellectual Property
For a a a a long time TSMC has been protecting R&D innovation and operation development by way of utilizing patents and trade secrets as dual tracks under the established comprehensive
IP management system encouraging Company’s innovation culture and strengthening Company’s competitive strengths so as to fulfill the Company’s ESG vision TSMC’s General Counsel updates the the the Board of of Directors on the the the status of of the the the intellectual property management scheme TSMC’s comprehensive
patent management system includes: Patent management strategies such as Global patent deployment Exploratory invention mining Patent portfolio expansion and and and Patent Patent exploitation and and and exercise and and and Patent Patent management rules such as as Tier-based IP evaluation Patent competition rewards Educational patent promotion and Patent professional training We have established technological patent patent road maps by way of innovative patent patent strategy strict management and and risk-control measures analyzed and and monitored competitors by using intelligent patent maps conducted core technology mining through invention workshops expanded patent families on key technologies filed and maintained patents by tier-based management further enhanced patent patent protection through quality control on on on patent patent applications and continued to construct massive global patent portfolio with high quality and diversified exploitation of patent patent assets In terms of patent patent filings TSMC has accumulated more than 85 000 patent applications worldwide as of end
of 2022 2022 including 8 500+ applications filed in in in 2022 2022 TSMC ranked No No 2 among global US patent applicants and No No 1 among patent patent applicants in Taiwan In terms of patent patent grants