SANTA CLARA, CA, — April 5, 2011— Berkeley Design Automation, Inc., the nanometer circuit verification leader and Altos Design Automation, Inc., the leading provider of IP characterization technology, today announced the support of Berkeley Design Automation Analog FastSPICE™ Platform in Altos’ Liberate product to accelerate complex I/O cell characterization with nanometer SPICE accuracy, including the effects of device noise and layout parasitics.
Complex I/O cells implemented in nanometer-scale processes run at GHz speeds, have increasingly tight performance specifications, and must meet extremely low jitter requirements. Ensuring that these circuits will meet specification requires nanometer circuit verification including the impact of device noise and post-layout parasitics. The integration of Berkeley Design Automation Analog FastSPICE with Altos Liberate addresses this need and delivers 5x-10x faster I/O cell characterization, including the effects of device noise and parasitics, with nanometer SPICE accuracy.
“Complex I/O characterization is very challenging for our customers,” said Jim McCanny, Altos CEO and founder. “Adding support for the Analog FastSPICE Platform in Liberate accelerates the characterization of complex I/O cells, including the effects of device noise and parasitics, with nanometer SPICE accuracy for our mutual customers.”
“As high-speed interfaces become pervasive in nanometer designs, accurate complex I/O cell characterization becomes critical for IC designers,” said Ravi Subramanian, president and CEO of Berkeley Design Automation. “The combination of the AFS Platform with Altos’ IP characterization tools brings our mutual customers substantial benefits – nanometer SPICE accurate results, a significant boost in performance, and breakthrough analysis of physical effects unmatched by any other solution.”
The Analog FastSPICE Platform is the industry’s only unified verification platform for nanometer analog, RF, mixed-signal, and custom digital circuits. The AFS Platform combines foundry-certified nm SPICE accuracy, 5x-10x faster single-core performance than any other SPICE circuit simulator, >10M-element capacity, and the industry’s only comprehensive silicon-accurate device noise analysis. The AFS Platform is a single executable that uses advanced algorithms and numerical analysis to rapidly solve the original device equations and full-circuit matrix without any approximations. It includes licenses for AFS Nano SPICE simulation, AFS circuit simulation, AFS Transient Noise Analysis, AFS RF Analysis, and AFS Co-Simulation.
Altos Liberate is an ultra-fast library creator that generates electrical models in Liberty®, Verilog, Vital and IBIS formats. Liberate supports all the latest models for timing, noise and power such as CCS (Composite Current Source) and ECSM (Effective Current Source Models) Liberate also supports ultra low power and high speed design styles that include power gating cells, state retention registers, level shifters, pulse clocking and CML. The support for AFS is available in Altos’ 3.1 product release also announced today.
About Berkeley Design Automation
Berkeley Design Automation, Inc. is the recognized leader in nanometer circuit verification. The company combines the industry’s only unified verification platform, Analog FastSPICE, with exceptional application expertise to uniquely address nm circuit design challenges. Nearly 100 companies, including most of the world’s top 20 semiconductor suppliers, rely on Berkeley Design Automation to efficiently verify their nm-scale circuits. Founded in 2003, the company has received several industry awards in recognition of its technology leadership and impact on the electronics industry. Berkeley Design Automation is privately held and backed by Woodside Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, Panasonic Corp., NTT Corp., IT-Farm, and MUFJ Capital. For more information, visit http://www.berkeley-da.com.
About Altos Design Automation
Altos Design Automation, Inc. provides ultra-fast, fully-automated characterization technology for the creation of library views for timing, signal integrity and power analysis and optimization. Altos advanced modeling solutions are used by both corner-based and statistical-based design implementation flows to reduce time to market and improve yield. Privately held, Altos was founded in 2005 in Santa Clara, CA. For more information, visit http://www.altos-da.com.
