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News Release from: Accellera
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 14 November 2003
Move to standardise electronic design
kit formats
A new Accellera technical subcommittee will address standardisation of custom design kit data.
A new Accellera technical subcommittee will address standardisation of custom design kit data The subcommittee, called the Accellera OpenKit (OK) Initiative, includes representatives from semiconductor, electronic design automation (EDA), foundry and intellectual property (IP) companies
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 8 Nov 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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They are working together to define standard design kit formats for representing process technology and other design data in EDA environments.
The establishment of standard formats for custom design data will save a significant amount of engineering time currently spent in integrating tools with design kits, as well as simplify the use of multiple tools, flows and different IC processes.
"Accellera welcomes the opportunity to extend its standards activities to the area of design kits.
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We believe that we can add value to the industry by providing standard data formats for transistor-level design, an area that has needed it for a long time", said Dennis Brophy, Chairman of Accellera.
Design kits provide information required by EDA tools during the simulation, implementation and verification steps of IC design.
This information includes process design rules, device models, schematic symbols and parameterised cells used for custom layout.
To date, standards are largely nonexistent in the area of design kits.
Nomenclature, use models, interfaces, quality thresholds, and delivery structures and mechanisms can vary widely depending on the selection of tools, library or IP and the targeted foundry requirements.
Participation in Accellera's OK Initiative subcommittee is open to all interested companies and individuals.
To date, more than 20 companies are represented.
These include Accellera members Artisan Components, Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics Corp, Motorola, NEC Electronics America and Synopsys, as well as 1st Silicon, Analog Design Automation, Applied Wave Research, Barcelona Design, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, CiraNova, Conexant Systems, HPL Technologies, IC Methods, National Semiconductor Corp, Sagantec, Silterra, Silvaco, TSMC, TI and Virage Logic, among others.
"NEC Electronics America uses a wide variety of IC processes, EDA tools and vendors", said Wolfgang Roethig, Senior Engineering Manager at NEC Electronics America.
"We support Accellera's efforts to incubate EDA standards that facilitate and streamline the design flow.
Custom cell development and qualification are critical and time-consuming.
The OpenKit Initiative strives to simplify the complex tasks necessary to deliver high-quality custom cells for SoC designs".
"Our long-standing philosophy is to lead and embrace open initiatives that help grow the industry, said Maq Mannan, Vice President of the PDK Solutions Group at Cadence Design Systems.
"As the leader in custom IC EDA solutions and process design kit (PDK) development, Cadence is lending its support to the OpenKit Initiative as a step forward in providing designers with a new generation of higher quality, silicon-accurate PDKs in less time".
"Customers should have the freedom to chose the best in class design tools without being constrained by tool dependent requirements", said Rich Goldman, Vice President, Strategic Market Development at Synopsys.
"Customer reaction to the OpenKit Initiative has been overwhelmingly supportive.
Our goal is to allow our customers to focus on the development of the design and minimise the time required to create the design kit.
Synopsys has been a strong supporter of standards and is an active participant in this Initiative".
"The need to simplify analogue design is becoming as apparent now just as the need to automate digital design was in the early eighties, said Jim Hogan, Sr VP Business Development, Artisan Components.
"The OpenKit Initiative will establish standards for custom design data elements or Design Kits that will enable greater automation to speed designs and to leverage limited analogue expertise.
The fact that all members of the design to manufacturing supply chain are represented will ensure that the resulting standards will serve the whole custom design-to-fab community".
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