Monday at DAC I met with an EDA start-up called Symica based in Kiev. Ian Tsybulkin, CEO met with me to give an overview of their tools.
What’s New in 2012- improved speed of SymSPICE turbo.
– 3x to 5x improvements
– user can define per block or instance the accuracy desired (or by hierarchy)
– new version released that works on both Windows and Linux OS
– partnership with Nefelus, new start-up for cloud-based tools. In the testing phase now. A netlist can be simulated on a 16 core server.
– improved parallelization methods.
Fast SPICE simulator works efficiently up to 16 cores.
Capacity of millions of devices.
Benchmarks can validate the accuracy claims of SymSPICE turbo (Spectre, HSPICE input netlist formats).
Input netlist is HSPICE and Spectre (or a mixture of netlists).
Schematic Editor, Waveform viewer – also available.
Customers – smaller and medium-sized companies, have a few dozen customers so far. Target is to grow the business.
Competitors – Spectre and HSPICE from a technology viewpoint. Other competitors would be: BDA, Silvaco.
Evaluations – there’s an edition called Symica Free Edition, restriction is the number of devices allowed (1,000 devices). To run on a larger design, then use a trial version limited for 30 days. Distributors are available, although it’s OK to contact the factory directly.
12 months from now – 10 to 20 new customers added.
Users – analog, AMS, Universities, memory design.
New releases – every 3 months an updated version.
Licensing – own system, not FlexLM however will migrate to FlexLM in the future.
First DAC for Symica.
Summary
I’m impressed that a start-up from the Ukraine can compete for EDA seats in IC Schematic, Layout and SPICE. The real test is to see if they can grow beyond the Ukraine and transition from a technology company into an EDA business with a unique value proposition and lots of customer references.
What is Wrong with Intel?