Software slashes nanometre design times

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jan 24, 2008

The 2007.12 release Synopsys' PrimeTime suite has managed an average 2X runtime improvement and 33% memory reduction over the 2006.12 release.

The 2007.12 release of Synopsys' PrimeTime suite has set a new performance standard for both static timing and signal integrity analysis, accelerating turnaround time and design closure for today's nanometre designs.

Broad improvements in design data reading and linking, intelligent disk caching, incremental timing updates and fine tuning of algorithms have resulted in an average 2X runtime improvement and 33% memory reduction over the 2006.12 release, while maintaining golden signoff accuracy.

"As a provider of complex SoCs for digital consumer, wireless, networking and security markets, RMI Corporation must adhere to very aggressive design schedules to meet our market windows", said Ramon Macias, Director of Physical Design, RMI.

"Using the 2007.12 release, the runtime for the PrimeTime SI tool dropped from three hours to one hour".

"More importantly, the time taken to load the design netlist and parasitics was reduced from one hour to five minutes, allowing us to use the PrimeTime application interactively rather than reverting to a save session".

"This productivity boost enables us to analyse multiple engineering changes in the length of time previously required for a single iteration".

Robert Hoogenstryd, Director of Marketing for Design Analysis and Signoff at Synopsys said "These latest enhancements build on the PrimeTime suite's ability to deliver the advanced static timing and signal integrity analysis that is essential to all design flows, while helping today's designers keep pace with Moore's law".

Synopsys will deliver a tutorial at the Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) San Jose 2008 event covering further techniques for reducing runtimes beyond the 2X out of the box performance improvement of the PrimeTime 2007.12 release.

SNUG San Jose 2008 will take place from 31st March through 2nd April, 2008 at the Santa Clara Convention centre in Santa Clara, California.