July 15, 2004 – Singapore foundry Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing has forged a deal with four incubation and services centers in China to help grow local IC design startup companies.

The deal aims to help startups with their move to SoC product development and integration, as well as design-for-manufacturing, through access to Chartered’s design rules and process-design kits, libraries, and IP, as well as its multiple-project wafer program for product prototyping.

Chartered said several Chinese startups have migrated from chip design to production using its manufacturing processes down to 0.18-micron. “Particularly for startups and medium-sized companies, access to design tools, libraries, and intellectual properties is critical,” noted Zhou Bin, GM at Shenzhen IC Design.

The China network includes the Shanghai Research Center for IC Design, Shenzhen IC Design Incubation co., EDA Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Xi’an IC Design Indstrialization Base of China.