Sunday Night at DAC

Sunday Night at DAC
by Daniel Payne on 06-05-2011 at 7:23 pm

San Diego Arrival
It’s another picture perfect day in San Diego as I arrived and checked into the Hyatt. The view from the 40th floor looked magnificent, with the Convention Center just a few minutes away in the distance:

Registration

Check in at DAC is quite automated and it took only a minute to receive my official badge with… Read More


Cadence Virtuoso 6.1.5 and ClioSoft Hardware Configuration Management – Webinar Review

Cadence Virtuoso 6.1.5 and ClioSoft Hardware Configuration Management – Webinar Review
by Daniel Payne on 05-19-2011 at 5:33 pm

Introduction
Cadence and ClioSoft made a webinar recently and I’ll summarize what I learned from it.

What’s New from Cadence in Virtuoso 6.1.5

  • Back2Basics (28nm rule integration, Skill improved with object-oriented, OASIS support, HTML Publisher, Waveform re-written for better Analog support, smaller Waveform
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A New Hierarchical 3D Field Solver

A New Hierarchical 3D Field Solver
by Daniel Payne on 05-19-2011 at 2:04 pm

Introduction
3D field solvers produce the most accurate netlists of RC values of your IC layout that can then be used in SPICE circuit simulators however most of these solvers produce a flat netlist which tends to simulate rather slowly. Thankfully several years ago the first hierarchical SPICE tools were offered by Nassda (HSIMRead More


Shakeup at Mentor Graphics

Shakeup at Mentor Graphics
by Daniel Payne on 05-12-2011 at 12:22 pm

Reading the title you guessed it right, Mentor Graphics has three new board members today from the slate offered by billionaire activist Carl Icahn:

  • José Maria Alapont, chief executive of the auto parts maker Federal-Mogul
  • Gary Meyers, a director of the chip maker Exar
  • David Schechter, an executive at Mr. Icahn’s investment firm
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Two New Platforms for Systems Designers

Two New Platforms for Systems Designers
by Daniel Payne on 05-03-2011 at 7:03 pm

Introduction
Today Cadence announced at the Embedded Systems Conference something of interest to systems designers.

What’s New?
The Rapid Prototyping Platform and Virtual System Platform are what’s new, and they intend to enable and automate concurrent hardware and software development. I can remember Mentor… Read More


Graphical DRC vs Text-based DRC

Graphical DRC vs Text-based DRC
by Daniel Payne on 05-01-2011 at 11:42 am

Introduction
IC designs go through a layout process and then a verification of that layout to determine if the layout layer width and spacing rules conform to a set of manufacturing design rules. Adhering to the layout rules will ensure that your chip has acceptable yields.

At the 28nm node a typical DRC (Design Rule Check) deck will… Read More


How Avnera uses Hardware Configuration Management with Virtuoso IC Tools

How Avnera uses Hardware Configuration Management with Virtuoso IC Tools
by Daniel Payne on 04-21-2011 at 12:12 pm

Introduction
Here in the Silicon Forest (Oregon) we have a venture-backed, fabless analog semi company called Avnera that has designed over 10 Analog System on Chips (ASoC). Their chips are used in consumer products for both wireless audio and video applications.

 

James Rollins is the director of physical design at Avnera… Read More


Transistor-Level Electrical Rule Checking

Transistor-Level Electrical Rule Checking
by Daniel Payne on 04-20-2011 at 11:19 am

Introduction
Circuit designers work at the transistor level and strive to get the ultimate in performance, layout density or low power by creating crafty circuit topologies in both schematics and layout. Along with this quest comes the daunting task of verifying that all of your rules and best practices about reliability have… Read More


Who Needs a 3D Field Solver for IC Design?

Who Needs a 3D Field Solver for IC Design?
by Daniel Payne on 04-07-2011 at 4:53 pm

Inroduction
In the early days we made paper plots of an IC layout then measured the width and length of interconnect segments with a ruler to add up all of the squares, then multiplied by the resistance per square. It was tedious, error prone and took way too much time, but we were rewarded with accurate parasitic values for our SPICE… Read More


DRC/DFM inside of Place and Route

DRC/DFM inside of Place and Route
by Daniel Payne on 03-31-2011 at 10:19 am

Intro
Earlier this month I drove to Mentor Graphics in Wilsonville, Oregon and spoke with Michael Buehler-Garcia, Director of Marketing and Nancy Nguyen, TME, both part of the Calibre Design to Silicon Division. I’m a big fan of correct-by-construction thinking in EDA tools and what they had to say immediately caught my… Read More