Low cost, prototype ASIC and MCM fabrication and assembly from the MOSIS service

The MOSIS Service at the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute offers services to obtain custom designed prototype quantities of ASICs and Multichip Modules (MCMs). The service recently added MIDAS, the MultiChip Module Designers' Access Service for MCM fabrication to the list of standard offerings. Thus a designer can now access domestic, high-volume IC and MCM production lines to obtain low-cost, prototype quantities of both. The low-cost environment exists via a multi-project environment, where users share the cost of NRE, masks, and fabrication. MOSIS takes care of front end foundry tasks such as data preparation and obtaining masks as well as placing the orders and delivering the finished product. This paper discusses how to access MOSIS to obtain custom ICs and MCMs for building innovative microelectronic devices.