October 8, 2001 – Heilbronn, Germany – Atmel Corp. introduced a new design tool. The HICUM (HIgh CUrrent transistor Model) allows fabless companies or those without SiGe capability to model designs more accurately and thus to reduce re-design costs, according to the company.

Atmel’s SiGe foundry provides sophisticated modeling software and mature design manuals for each of its three SiGe processes. These three core processes include SiGe1 and SiGe2, two HBT (Hetero-Bipolar junction Transistors) processes, and a BiCMOS process, with new processes of all types in continuing development, Atmel said.

In addition to the HICUM models, Atmel continues to offer conventional SPICE Gummel Poon models in the latest SiGe1 and SiGe2 libraries for HBTs. These are available for the simulation engines Eldo from Mentor Graphics Corp., Hpeesofsim from Agilent, and Spectre from Cadence Design Systems.

HICUM is an advanced low-cost solution transistor model for bipolar transistors with main emphasis on circuit design for high-speed and medium-power applications, the company said. These models specifically target the requirement for improved simulation capability, especially for high-speed large-signal transient applications and the resultant high collector current densities.