Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: Synopsys | Subject: Discovery AMS 2007
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 04 April 2007
Analogue and mixed signal verification
for SOCs
An integrated analogue and mixed-signal verification tool for system-on-chip designs comprises FastSpice simulation, unified debug and visualisation, and tight integration with digital verification.
Synopsys has announced the release of Discovery AMS 2007, a comprehensive, integrated analogue and mixed signal (AMS) verification solution for complex system on chip (SoC) designs Discovery AMS 2007 features three new components - FastSpice simulation technology, a new unified AMS debug and visualisation environment, and tight integration with Synopsys' VCS digital verification solution - that build upon Synopsys' technology leading HSIM and NanoSim FastSpice simulators
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 19 Apr 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Until now, Spice simulators did not have the capacity, and FastSpice simulators could not achieve the accuracy required to simulate today's mixed signal nanometre designs.
Synopsys' new XA simulation technology allows customers to achieve "out-of-the-box" Spice accuracy while maintaining FastSpice performance and capacity.
The XA simulation technology is a patent-pending transistor-level simulation engine designed to augment NanoSim and HSIM as an add-on option.
The combination of the XA simulation technology with NanoSim or HSIM delivers a complete transistor level verification system.
"Since its introduction in 2003, Discovery AMS has been adopted by hundreds of design teams worldwide in their production flows", says George Zafiropoulos, Vice President of Marketing for Verification Products at Synopsys.
"With Discovery AMS 2007, we have addressed the growing need for Spice acceleration performance with a solution that builds upon our proven HSIM and NanoSim simulators".
"Working with leading IC companies such as Renesas Technology allows us to continuously improve our mixed-signal verification solution and deliver breakthrough technology in performance and accuracy, which our HSIM and NanoSim users can leverage through their current investments in our products".
Increasing analogue and mixed signal content in SoC designs is driving both the demand for mixed-signal verification and the need for a unified environment for analogue and mixed-signal debug and visualisation.
With Discovery AMS 2007, both Synopsys' high performance HSIM and NanoSim circuit simulators are tightly integrated with Synopsys' VCS digital verification solution through direct kernel integration.
The result is higher performance, higher verification throughput and greater flexibility in verifying mixed-signal SoC designs at all levels of abstraction, including SystemC, SystemVerilog, behavioural, gate and transistor level.
In addition, Discovery AMS 2007 provides a full featured, powerful debug and analysis environment that includes both analogue and digital analysis capabilities.
"Accurate and timely verification of our complex custom and analogue ICs with post layout parasitics has become a critical factor in the success of our leading edge IC designs", says Hisaharu Miwa, General Manager, Design Technology Division, LSI Product Technology Unit, Renesas Technology.
"Discovery AMS, with the combination of HSIM and the XA simulation technology, enabled us to reduce verification time by an average of 5x over traditional FastSpice and more than 50x over Spice while maintaining Spice-like accuracy".
Synopsys' Discovery AMS 2007.03 is available immediately.
The NanoSim/ HSIM XA Option is available immediately to HSIM and NanoSim customers.
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