The plethora of foundries and original device manufacturers (ODMs) providing foundry services and process options makes it tough to select the best process for chip design. Many companies now offer the technology of choice for high-performance and highly integrated ICs—90-nm manufacturing services.
If your performance goals don't push the edge, look to a foundry. But if your circuit has tight timing demands, extremely high integration, or a low-leakage current requirement, an ODM that offers foundry services is going to be a better match. ODMs often can provide a performance edge because they create optimized cell libraries to get the most out of their processes when they design their own chips. As a result, they can offer those optimized libraries to customers demanding the best performance possible.
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