Update
An update of the method seen below - you can use https://www.mosis.com/Webforms/new_project_scmos.html instead of sending the NEW Project request by email.
Next fill out the Fabricate Form, https://www.mosis.com/Webforms/fabricate.html
You can then FTP your GDS directly to MOSIS, avoiding the need to UUE the file.
Old, but still useful.
Below is the basic email that needs to be sent to mosis@mosis.com when requesting a new-project. The account number and password are supplied by mosis when the account is setup. The design name and password are selected by the person submitting the chip. Information concerning the technology code and lambda can be found at http://www.mosis.com/ The code SCNA (scalable cmos n-well analog) and a lambda of 0.8 indicate that AMI's 1.5um process is used (ABN). A technology code of SCN3ME_SUBM (the submicron scalable design rules used in Electric DRC) and a lambda of 0.3 indicate AMI’s 0.5 um processs is used (C5 with two poly layers and 3 levels of metal). If you use a tech code like “AMI-C5” this indicates YOU ARE NOT using the MOSIS design rules so the layer numbers will be different in the gds file (this will justifiably confuse the MOSIS system and it will tell you things like “metal1 not found”). At the very end of the email I use REQUEST: END to indicate that I am not going to make additional requests in the email. (Note that using capitals or lower case letters is allowed.)
REQUEST: NEW-PROJECT
CUSTOMER-ACCOUNT-NUMBER: My-schools-account
CUSTOMER-ACCOUNT-PASSWORD: My-schools-password
DESIGN-NAME: chips
DESIGN-PASSWORD: design1
NET-ADDRESS: hotchips@hotmail.com
FILL-AUTHORIZED: Yes
PHONE-NUMBER: 123-123-1234
TECHNOLOGY-CODE: SCN3ME_SUBM
LAMBDA: 0.3
FOUNDRY: AMI
FAB-OPTIONS:
INTENDED-DISPOSITION: Research
DESIGN-KIT-VERSION:
PAD-COUNT: 40
DESIGN-SIZE: 1500 x 1500
PO-NUMBER:
DESCRIPTION: test structures
QUANTITY-PACKAGED: 5
PACKAGE-NAME: DIP40
BONDING-DIAGRAM-SUPPLIER:
QUANTITY-UNPACKAGED: 0
QUANTITY-ORDERED: 5
ROUTING-LABEL:
QUOTE-ID:
RUN-TYPE:
IP-INCLUDED:
SPECIAL-HANDLING:
ATTENTION:
REQUEST: END
MOSIS sends an email to the net-address listed above indicating a project ID (55555). At this point we should write down (or store in some place electronically) this ID and the design name/password.
Note the "Fill-AUTHORIZED" is used to aid with CMP (chemical mechanical polishing) of the inter layer dielectric. For example, your chip may be covered with poly over only 5% of its total area. In order for the CMP to reliably level and flatten the dielectric between metal1 and poly additional "Fill" poly will be added in certain areas. This shouldn't have any effect on your circuit's operation.
But what if the design is a big photodiode made using n+ in the p-substrate? There likely won’t be enough space to add poly fill to get the amount of poly up to the minimum required for proper polishing via CMP. Poly fill can’t be placed over active since poly over active (n+ or p+) forms a MOSFET. Remember that your chip is one of many on the wafer. It’s likely that the fill added to other chips around yours will be enough to meet the CMP requirements (especially if your chip is relatively small).
Next, assuming the designs were laid out with the MOSIS design rules using the Technology setup in Electric, we can use the padframe available in Electric's built-in library (Help-> Load Built-in Libraries-> MOSIS SCMOS Pads). You will see several possible padframes in the built-in library. I general just use the analog pads (even for the digital circuits). This will show the students how buffers can be used (as they are used in the digital padframe) to keep from loading the on-chip circuitry. For a tiny-chip in AMI's 1.5 um process the size of the padframe should be 2750 by 2750.
OK, the students submit the DRC checked designs in the MOSIS design rules in Electric. Following steps are to be followed to submit the Electric layout file to MOSIS:
1. After making sure that the DRC and NCC (aka LVS) checks pass on the top level cell in the design, export the top level cell into GDS format (File-> Export-> GDSII (stream) ). The GDS export will also scale the entire chip by lambda. MOSIS wants to receive a layout that is the actual size of the final chip not the drawn size (and that is why we specify 2200 by 2200 in the email above). The chip should be roughly 2200 by 2200 in the AB process (a "tiny chip").
2. Next, we need to run MOSISCRC tool in order to determine the crc checksum and the file length (both used in the next email shown below). MOSISCRC can be downloaded from http://www.mosis.com/support/submit/term_chksum.html
Save the mosiscrc.exe file in the design directory, say C:\Electric, and use the following command in command line window:
C:\Electric> mosiscrc -b design1.gds
This will output the crc checksum and file length as shown below:
CRC-Checksum: 4186439073 798720 design1.gds
3. Since the GDS is a binary format, the transmission of the layout may get corrupted when using email. Thus we need to encode the GDS file into a UUE file. UU is a text based format which precludes errors when sending layout file through mail. This can be done using any freeware available. I generally use UUDeview available at http://www.fpx.de/fp/Software/UUDeview/
Start UUDeview program, click on the 'Encode' tab, and select 'UU' encoding scheme with 'Single file' output mode. Provide the filename, target directory and hit 'Go'. This will generate another file titled design1.uue. The file when opened in Notepad will read like this:
_=_
_=_ Part 001 of 001 of file design1.gds
_=_
begin 666 design1.gds
M``8``@`#`!P!`@!K``(`$@`(`"\`%@!K``,``@`%`#H`*0`.`@9/<&%M<%]#
M:&EP`!0#!3Y!B3=+QJ?P.42X+Z";6E,`'`4"`&L``@`2``D`*@`;`&L``@`6
.
.
.
End
Now delete the comment lines above the line starting with begin, so that the file looks like this:
begin 666 design1.gds
M``8``@`#`!P!`@!K``(`$@`(`"\`%@!K``,``@`%`#H`*0`.`@9/<&%M<%]#
M:&EP`!0#!3Y!B3=+QJ?P.42X+Z";6E,`'`4"`&L``@`2``D`*@`;`&L``@`6
.
.
.
end
The layout is now ready to be mailed to MOSIS. The file you send to MOSIS is design1.uue
4. Next, I tried to email the following request to mosis@mosis.com with the uue file as an attachment. For some reason, with my new mail program, the first line of the uue file is ignored. (It did work OK with my previous email program.) To solve this problem I made a (single) text file using wordpad with the requests and information at the beginning of the file (the stuff shown below) and then I insert the uue file (as text) after the LAYOUT: line. I send the single file as an attachment in an email with nothing in the main body. The MOSIS system is really well done so that if you made a mistake you can generally tell by the automated responses.
REQUEST: FABRICATE
DESIGN-NUMBER: 55555
DESIGN-PASSWORD: design1
LAYOUT-FORMAT: UUGDS
CRC-CHECKSUM: 2397826573 198498
TOP-STRUCTURE: chipfinal1
ATTENTION:
LAYOUT:
REQUEST: END
Some other useful requests.
REQUEST: STATUS
DESIGN-NUMBER: 55555
DESIGN-PASSWORD: design1
REQUEST: CANCEL-PROJECT
DESIGN-NUMBER: 55555
DESIGN-PASSWORD: design1
REQUEST: CANCEL-FABRICATE
DESIGN-NUMBER: 55555
DESIGN-PASSWORD: design1
REQUEST: UPDATE
DESIGN-NUMBER: 55555
DESIGN-PASSWORD: design1
TECHNOLOGY-CODE: SCN3M_SUBM (for example changing the tech code)
See http://www.mosis.com for additional information.
CMOS Circuit Design, Layout, and Simulation
CMOS Mixed-Signal Circuit Design