EDA mergers: Accelicon acquired by Agilent

EDA mergers: Accelicon acquired by Agilent
by Daniel Payne on 12-06-2011 at 4:51 pm

Agilent acquired EEsof back in 1999, now the EEsof group acquired Accelicon on December 1, 2011. The terms of the deal are not disclosed.

SPICE circuit simulators are only as accurate as their models and algorithms. On the model side we have Accelicon that provides EDA tools to create SPICE models based on silicon measurements:… Read More


HSPICE – I Didn’t Know That About IC Circuit Simulation

HSPICE – I Didn’t Know That About IC Circuit Simulation
by Daniel Payne on 12-05-2011 at 11:14 am

HSPICE is over 30 years old, which is a testimony of how solid the circuit simulator has been and how widely used it is. To stay competitive the HSPICE developers have to innovate or the product will slowly loose ground to the many other simulator choices. I listened to the webinar last week to find out what was new with HSPICE.

SzekitRead More


A Review of an Analog Layout Tool called HiPer DevGen

A Review of an Analog Layout Tool called HiPer DevGen
by Daniel Payne on 11-28-2011 at 1:11 pm

My last IC design at Intel was a Graphics Chip and I developed a layout generator for Programmable Logic Arrays (PLA) that automated the task, so I’ve always been interested in how to make IC layout more push-button and less polygon pushing. Today I watched a video about HiPer DevGen from Tanner EDA and wanted to share what I … Read More


December 1st – Hands-on Workshop with Calibre: DRC, LVS, DFM, xRC, ERC (Fremont, California)

December 1st – Hands-on Workshop with Calibre: DRC, LVS, DFM, xRC, ERC (Fremont, California)
by Daniel Payne on 11-24-2011 at 9:57 am

I’ve blogged about the Calibre family of IC design tools before:

Smart Fill replaced Dummy Fill Approach in a DFM Flow
DRC Wiki
Graphical DRC vs Text-based DRC
Getting Real time Calibre DRC Results with Custom IC Editing
Transistor-level Electrical Rule Checking
Who Needs a 3D Field Solver for IC Design?
Prevention is BetterRead More


Multi-Mode Simulation – What’s New at Cadence?

Multi-Mode Simulation – What’s New at Cadence?
by Daniel Payne on 11-21-2011 at 6:52 pm

Every week I receive several webinar invitations, so the recent one from Cadence about Virtuoso Multi-Mode simulation caught my fancy because I had met with John Pierce at DAC and wanted to see what was new since then and see how they compared with Mentor and Synopsys tools.


John Pierce, Product Marketing Director

This webinar runs… Read More


Learning about 3D IC Design and Test, IEEE Workshop on Friday, December 9th in Newport Beach, CA

Learning about 3D IC Design and Test, IEEE Workshop on Friday, December 9th in Newport Beach, CA
by Daniel Payne on 11-19-2011 at 4:42 pm

The IEEE has an Orange Country Chapter of the Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society who are organizing an all-day workshop, 3D Integrated Circuits: Technologies Enabling the Revolution. This looks to be an informative day with real-world examples in both design and test being presented by over a dozen … Read More


Physical Verification of 3D-IC Designs using TSVs

Physical Verification of 3D-IC Designs using TSVs
by Daniel Payne on 11-12-2011 at 10:36 am

3D-IC design has become a popular discussion topic in the past few years because of the integration benefits and potential cost savings, so I wanted to learn more about how the DRC and LVS flows were being adapted. My first stop was the Global Semiconductor Alliance web site where I found a presentation about how DRC and LVS flows were… Read More


SPICE Circuit Simulation at Magma

SPICE Circuit Simulation at Magma
by Daniel Payne on 11-11-2011 at 11:36 am

All four of the public EDA companies offer SPICE circuit simulation tools for use by IC designers at the transistor-level, and Magma has been offering two SPICE circuit simulators:

  • FineSIM SPICE (parallel SPICE)
  • FineSIM PRO (accelerated, parallel SPICE)

An early advantage offered by Magma was a SPICE simulator that could be … Read More


Learning Verilog for ASIC and FPGA Design

Learning Verilog for ASIC and FPGA Design
by Daniel Payne on 11-02-2011 at 11:17 am

Verilog History
Prabhu Goel founded Gateway Design Automation and Phil Moorby wrote the Verilog language back in 1984. In 1989 Cadence acquired Gateway and Verilog grew into a de-facto HDL standard. I first met Prabu at Wang Labs in 1982 where I designed a rather untestable custom chip named the WL-2001 (yes, it was named to honor… Read More


What’s New with Semiconductor Test and Failure Analysis at Mentor?

What’s New with Semiconductor Test and Failure Analysis at Mentor?
by Daniel Payne on 10-28-2011 at 6:03 pm

ISTFA
Silicon Valley is a great location for trade shows and technical conferences, so if you have an interest in test and failure analysis then don’t miss out on the 37th annual International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis. This year ISTFA will be held from Sunday, November 13th thru Thursday, November 17th … Read More