Tools of the Trade

Black Forest Engineering takes great care in choosing the tools that aid design and verification. These tools must stay current with advances in modeling and manufacturing as well as support the packages provided by the foundries. As our customers’ needs and the requirements of our industry evolve, we continually evaluate all that is critical for us to ensure function, performance, viability and yield for each design we create.

Design and Simulation

Cadence Virtuoso & Silicon Canvas’ LakerAMS for schematic capture
Cadence Spectre & Silvaco’s SmartSpice for analog simulation
Mentor Graphics‘ ADMS & Silvaco’s Harmony for mixed signal simulation
Cadence Xcelium & Mentor Graphics‘ ModelSIM for HDL and digital simulation

Layout & Physical Verification

Cadence Virtuoso & IC-Editor for Layout
Mentor Graphics’ Calibre for DRC/LVS/XRC
Silvaco’s Clever for 3D physical device modeling and field solving

Employment Opportunities

A Career with BFE

BFE continuously looks for engineering talent that could complement our already diversely competent and experienced group of designers. Every engineer at Black Forest Engineering must have a solid grasp of fundamental properties and design concepts. BFE engineers must also have the creativity to come up with the simplest and most easily implemented solution, providing for successful and robust designs.

To inquire about our position(s) please email us @

employment@bfe.com

BFE is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, religion, age, disability, gender identity, results of genetic testing, service in the military, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. We will make a reasonable accommodation for any qualified applicant with a disability, provided that the individual is otherwise qualified to safely perform the essential functions of the job with or without accommodation and that the accommodation would not impose an undue hardship on the operation of our business. Please let us know if you believe you require reasonable accommodation, or if you would like assistance to complete an application or to participate in an interview at the company.

Visit our Office

Visiting our Office

If you are coming to our office be sure to experience some of the wonderful things that Colorado Springs has to offer. In case they could be useful we have compiled our own directions for common landmarks here.

Places to Stay …

Hilton Garden Inn
- Close to Promenade Shops at Briargate
- 7 mins from our office
La Quinta Inn & Suites – Colorado Springs North
- Close to Chapel Hills mall and restaurants along Academy Blvd.
- 11 mins from our Office
Days Inn – Garden of the Gods
- Relatively close to the Garden of the Gods
- 15 mins from our office

Things to do …

Explore the Garden of the Gods
Drive, ride or hike to the top of Pikes Peak
Visit the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
Go snow skiing
Visit the Air Force Academy
Tour the US Olympic Training Complex

Decades of Experience

i >350 fully custom ICs

b Over 30 years of experience

jOver 15 different silicon foundries

cProcess experience ranging 60nm-1.2um

pInfrared camera development

fTest system development

BFE's design cycle from initial request to finished application solution

kApplications

IR detectors / preamplifiers / multiplexers
LIDAR detectors & readout
Laser drivers
Photonic counting circuits
Micro-power A/D and D/A converters
X-ray and high energy particle detectors and interface chips
Radiation hard versions of above
Image sensors (CMOS and CCD)
Image processors
Integrated liquid crystal drivers

bChip Size Extremes

300um diameter die size imagers for medical applications
17×19 mm² display driver for projection displays
51×25 mm² visible/scintillator x-ray sensor (using stitching)

gSpecial Features

2Ghz analog bandwidth CMOS for LIDAR range sensing
Single photon detection
22V CMOS devices
Far infrared & high energy particle readout processors
SWIR, MWIR, LWIR

hNon-Standard processes

Unique & cutting edge applications often require specific technologies

Thermopile – Micrel
PiN detector – Micron Semiconductor Ltd.
Rad-hard CMOS – Honeywell 0.8 SOI
IR Detectors – InGaAs, HgCdTe, PbSe, a-Si
CCD – Supertex 1.2um

jFoundry Experience

TSMC 0.13um, 0.18um, 0.25um, 0.35um (includes their BCD [Bipolar, CMOS, DMOS] Power management technology)
Tower/Jazz 0.13um, 0.18um, 0.25um, 0.35um (Stitching, ITAR Compliant)
IBM (corp. site) 0.13um (ITAR Compliant)
Austria MicroSystems 0.35um
Others include: AMIS (0.5um, 1.2um), CSMC (0.6um), Fujitsu (0.25um), HP (0.35um, 0.5um), Amkor (0.35um, 0.5um), Texas Instruments (0.8um, 1um), UMC (0.4um (5V))

jMask Types

Full Mask Sets
Stitching: Enables fabrication of large dice. A repeated exposure masking process that has its own complexities yield considerations.
MPW: In addition to foundry specific multi-project wafer runs we have worked with MOSIS • Global Unichip • EUROPRACTICE.

hProcess Types & Materials

CMOS
CMOS/CCD
Bi-CMOS
BCD (Bipolar, CMOS, DMOS)
CMOS-SOS

dDevice Protocols/Interfaces

SERDES
USB
SPI
LVDS

fCustom Test Systems

Performance built for your specific requirements.

Wafer probing
Testing at cryogenic temperatures
PCB designs and interfaces using FPGA, CPLD and a variety of other components
Solutions for system interface problems:
- High density interconnect
- Non-standard packaging
- Optics

Micro-Camera-Module

Our Tools