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I don’t know I don’t have the credentials to be an engineer at Intel, but I think they know its a bad idea to end or spin off their foundry service, especially

I don’t know I don’t have the credentials to be an engineer at Intel, but I think they know its a bad idea to end or spin off their foundry service, especially now that they have a new client that will know the ins and outs of their fabrication process.

nsteel 3y ago
> will know the ins and outs of their fabrication process. What do you mean by this? When working with a fab you get to know their design rules and that's about it.
- cma 3y ago
  I believe I've read that design rules give away parts of the process so usually you have to sign anexclusivity agreement not to work with another vendor for a while, or firewall teams that work with different vendors.
  - nsteel 3y ago
    I can't imagine what you could take from one place to another that isn't trivial if they've got to the point of being even able to provide the technology. In the grand scheme of things, these rules are relatively high level. There are NDAs but that's more about non-public roadmaps, timelines and specialised IP i.e. future things that a competitor could then have time to work towards. The point being, there's no world where a fab would worry about sharing their design rules.
    - cma 3y ago
      This is old and not the one I read, but what I could find through search: > Engineers needed manufacturing process information to verify that designs were free from systematic yield limiters, but foundries were reluctant to distribute process information that could reveal best practices and trade secrets. Encryption enabled the protection of selected design rules, process data and other information while still giving customers the details they needed. > In this discussion, you must understand that the required protection is much more than just an obfuscation of rule definitions so they are no longer human readable. The process also includes the encryption of related files and control over all the outputs from the tool environment that provide information about any checks. https://www.techdesignforums.com/practice/technique/protecting-ip-collaborative-signoff-environment/ https://www.techdesignforums.com/practice/technique/protecti... The design rules themselves could yield info to competitors about what processes are being used in the upcoming gen.

nsteel 3y ago

> will know the ins and outs of their fabrication process. What do you mean by this? When working with a fab you get to know their design rules and that's about it.

cma 3y ago
I believe I've read that design rules give away parts of the process so usually you have to sign anexclusivity agreement not to work with another vendor for a while, or firewall teams that work with different vendors.
- nsteel 3y ago
  I can't imagine what you could take from one place to another that isn't trivial if they've got to the point of being even able to provide the technology. In the grand scheme of things, these rules are relatively high level. There are NDAs but that's more about non-public roadmaps, timelines and specialised IP i.e. future things that a competitor could then have time to work towards. The point being, there's no world where a fab would worry about sharing their design rules.
  - cma 3y ago
    This is old and not the one I read, but what I could find through search: > Engineers needed manufacturing process information to verify that designs were free from systematic yield limiters, but foundries were reluctant to distribute process information that could reveal best practices and trade secrets. Encryption enabled the protection of selected design rules, process data and other information while still giving customers the details they needed. > In this discussion, you must understand that the required protection is much more than just an obfuscation of rule definitions so they are no longer human readable. The process also includes the encryption of related files and control over all the outputs from the tool environment that provide information about any checks. https://www.techdesignforums.com/practice/technique/protecting-ip-collaborative-signoff-environment/ https://www.techdesignforums.com/practice/technique/protecti... The design rules themselves could yield info to competitors about what processes are being used in the upcoming gen.