AT&T Co’s AT&T Microelectronics of Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, has developed a set of personal computer functions in the form of ASIC macrocells. The new macrocells are fully characterised to run at 2.7V as well as conventional 5.5V and are compatible with AT&T’s three standard-cell libraries in CMOS and BiCMOS. Seven macrocells are compatible with MS-DOS personal computer standard parts and they are ready to use in applications such as notebook computers, workstations, cellular communications and hard drives. The macrocells can be implemented interchangeably with any of AT&T’s BiCMOS or CMOS standard-cell libraries, and for chip-level simulation. The macrocells come with test vectors; available now, they are delivered upon customer request as part of computer-aided design support from AT&T, and the fee for their use, which is charged as an increment in non-recurring engineering costs, is variable, but starts $1,500, and increases according to macrocell complexity and the extent of use.
