FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 14, 1999

Santa Cruz, CA

Artwork Conversion Software has been awarded a contract to completely rewrite Advanced Micro Devices' (AMD's) in-house IC package management software and automatic wire bonding software.

With over 600 existing designs in house, AMD wanted a client-server based application enabling product engineers worldwide to access package designs stored on a centralized server. The engineer defines key parameters to get a list of all packages meeting his requirements. He can then view the package using Adobe Acrobat or download the package drawing to his local workstation. When a new package is released it is placed on the server and becomes immediately available to product engineers worldwide.

Once the designer has selected a package for his new die he uses the WireBond module to identify and number bond fingers converting a dumb drawing into an intelligent one.

The designer then automatically extracts the die pad coordinates from the GDSII stream data. These are imported and numbered by the WireBond module running inside of AutoCAD. Wires are then attached from the die pad to the package fingers; either fully automatically or directed by a connection list.

Wire placement is analyzed; wires that violate spacing, length or angle rules are flagged. A 400 pin package can be analyzed in 60 seconds. Final documentation is automatically created by the WireBond module and the drawing can then be sent to the assembly area.

The entire WireBond application is written using Visual Basic and AutoCAD's ARX programming language. Package data is stored on a centralized server and accessed via ftp - it doesn't matter where in the world a product engineer is located.

While the WireBond application was developed specifically for AMD's requirements, the framework and modules are applicable to any large semiconductor company that needs to manage and re-use a large number of existing packages as new die come on line. Details at www.artwork.com/package/amd