Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: Avant! Corporation
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 31 August 2001
Ricoh is Japan's first to adopt Avant!'s
Astro
Ricoh has selected the Astro solution, Avant!'s breakthrough capability for ultra-deep-submicron (UDSM) physical design closure.
Ricoh has selected the Astro solution, Avant!'s breakthrough capability for ultra-deep-submicron (UDSM) physical design closure Astro adds advanced physical optimisation, place and route capability to Avant!'s Milkyway-based, SinglePass-SoC design closure solution
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 7 Jun 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Announced in January, Astro is creating a lot of interest with two key advances - PhySiSys technology and the Milkyway-DUO architecture.
PhySiSys technology (physically accurate, signal integrity and synthesis optimisation) is the advanced technology used for achieving design closure by concurrently accounting for important UDSM physical effects throughout the design closure process.
PhySiSys performance is based on a silicon-accurate foundation, so designers not only enjoy the fastest design turnaround time but also get consistent timing convergence results by applying a simple pushbutton flow.
With the Milkyway-DUO architecture, Astro ensures that all tools associated with specific optimisation operations communicate synchronously with minimum database read/write.
The architecture uses dynamically allocated, shared memory to achieve fast run times and enable large design capacities.
The Milkyway-DUO architecture is fully compatible with the Milkyway database so there are no migration issues from Apollo-based designs.
Compared with Apollo-II, Astro was able to achieve a 10% chip speed increase, a 3X faster run time advantage, and up to a 50% memory usage reduction for its LSI design.
"With ultra-deep-submicron processes of 0.13 microns and below, designs will be over 10 million gates in size.
To complete such a VLSI design on time, high-speed run time, memory reduction and silicon-accurate results are key technologies", said Zenji Oka, Manager of CAD Engineering Section, Imaging System LSI Development Center, at Ricoh.
"Astro achieves its results through highly efficient concurrent processes that include timing-driven placement, clock tree synthesis, strong optimisation features such as logic restructuring, and still provides high speed, memory reduction, and accurate results.
Its breakthrough technology is exactly what we need for our large System LSI Design".
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