Microelectronic Devices, Circuits and Systems – Micronet
Microchip design company on the cutting edge of technology
A company named after a tropical plant found only in the South Pacific is
developing some of the fastest analog-to-digital converters ever designed.
Started in 1998 by Ken Martin and David Johns, two professors of electrical
engineering at the University of Toronto who are experts in mixed-signal
integrated circuit design, Snowbush has provided design services to a
variety of semiconductor companies. The companies range from large, established
leaders to promising start-ups.
Snowbush – a spin-off of Micronet, one of Canada's 20 federal
Networks of Centres of Excellence – is responsible for the hardware-design
part of microchip design services known as transistor-level design.
Snowbush's specialty lies within microchip design: analog and mixed-signal
integrated circuit (IC) design. The technology is used in a number of
everyday products, such as cellular phones, digital projectors, DVD players,
and Ethernet connections.
Snowbush operates as a "contract research and development house."
If larger semiconductor companies don't have the expertise or personnel
available to do a project, they'll go to Snowbush and outsource their
research and development in the area of chip design.
One of their original goals was to offer graduating students cutting-edge
analog and mixed-signal design work in the Toronto area. Many of these
students have been trained with the help of Micronet, which Johns says
has prepared them for careers elsewhere. "When people go down to
the States, it's not just for the money. They also want to work on very
leading-edge technology work," says Johns, now the company's vice-president
of technology.
The company already has a list of accomplishments and innovations to
its credit. Snowbush has produced a chip for flat-panel displays that
helps to replace a standard computer monitor with an LCD flat-panel monitor,
which involves an analog-to-digital converter. A project that Johns says
was very successful. Currently, they are working on high-speed data communications
for next-generation disk drives – essentially a chip that helps
to connect a computer's motherboard to the disk drive. Johns says Snowbush
is also working with one of the world's leading semiconductor companies
on one of the fastest analog-to-digital converters that's ever been designed.
www.micronetrd.ca
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