Last year I was surprised at DAC by an un-heard of EDA company from China, ICScape. This year I followed up and spoke with Ravi Ravikumar about what’s new with ICScape in 2013.
Q: What’s new this year at ICScape?
We’ve released a product called PowerExplorer – leakage power optimization. Customers have done tape outs with it.
Q: Can you tell me about your EDA customers?
We do have new customers in the past year, tier 1, US-based, no comment on names.
Q: How many from ICScape at DAC?
At DAC – 15 people this year.
Full company 25 people.
Q: What other EDA tools do you offer?
We have analog tools that are OA-based.
Schematic Driven Layout using Aether
Soc Timing ECO closure, and power reduction. It doesn’t matter what your tool flow is, if you have LEF/DEF then we can help your timing ECO closure.
Why? Cuts down to 2-4 iterations to reach closure. Not 10-12 iterations like with other approaches. Don’t touch the original placement. Our tools tell you that ther’s no legal placement for a cell to meet your timing.
Leakage Power – Give us a netlist, timing library, dont create timing violations. IC Explorer is the product family, makes sure not to create timing violations.
Requires STA data results.
AMS IC design tools – we have RC extraction and DRC/LVS tools as well. Pin 2 pin and point to point RC analysis interactively. You can wait until LVS clean to extract RC, or even earlier to get quick feedback.
Q: How are your tools sold around the world?
US – Contact HQ in Santa Clara, Johnson Lau & Jeff Havlaff.
Korea – Distributor.
Japan – Distributor.
Taiwan – Maojet.
China – HES.
Europe – Rep.
Q: Do your EDA tools support FinFET?
Yes, we are supporting AMS nodes for CMOS bulk, and developing support for FinFETs and FD-SOI.
Q: How is DAC for you this year?
DAC – much better results than expectations, booth has been full with meetings.
Q: How is business?
Tool evaluations – we’ve doubled our sales/AEs, so it makes evaluations go quicker.
Q: What trends do you see?
Too many SoC modes of operation (ie 200 modes), how can a P&R tool meet timing for all 200 modes? Built-in P&R engine that deals with timing engine that can concurrently converge on timing, eliminates impossible layout scenarios. Close the convergence loop.
Marvel – first customer success story.
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