Berkeley Design Automation and Solido Design Automation Accelerate Nanometer IC Variation Analysis

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Berkeley Design Automation, Inc., provider of the Analog FastSPICE™ unified circuit verification platform (AFS Platform), and Solido Design Automation, provider of Variation Designer, today announced a validated flow for rapid reduction in variation risk in nanometer designs at the transistor level. Driven by demand by a leading fabless semiconductor provider, the companies have proven a solution in which Variation Designer utilizes the AFS Platform. The result is variation analysis capabilities that enable designers to rapidly reduce variation risk.

“Rapidly eliminating yield losses due to process variation in nanometer analog, mixed-signal, and RF designs is a key requirement for high-volume nanometer ICs”

The Analog FastSPICE Platform (AFS Platform) is the industry’s only unified circuit verification platform for analog, mixed-signal, and RF design. It always delivers true SPICE accurate results, while providing 5x-20x higher performance than traditional SPICE, >10 million-element capacity, and the industry’s only comprehensive device noise analysis. The AFS Platform is a single executable that uses advanced algorithms and numerical analysis to rapidly solve the full-circuit matrix and original device equations without any shortcuts. The AFS Platform includes licenses for AFS Nano SPICE simulation, AFS circuit simulation, AFS Co-Simulation, AFS Transient Noise Analysis, and AFS RF Analysis.

"Rapidly eliminating yield losses due to process variation in nanometer analog, mixed-signal, and RF designs is a key requirement for high-volume nanometer ICs,” said Ravi Subramanian, president and CEO of Berkeley Design Automation. “The excellent results from the proven Solido Variation Designer integration with the Berkeley Design Automation AFS Platform will provide our mutual customers a dramatic increase in productivity and design turn-around-time.”

Variation Designer, along with Solido’s PVT (process, voltage, temperature) Corner, Statistical, and Proximity applications packages can be deployed for transistor level design to account for global, local, environmental and proximity related variation effects. The benefit of these solutions is improved designs and reduced variation risk in less time. Variation Designer is used across the transistor level design cycle – from PVT corner simulations to statistical analysis – to determine mismatch effects or yield.

"Variation Designer provides a scalable and extensible solution for solving problems created by process variation in nanometer designs at the transistor level,” said Amit Gupta, president and CEO of Solido Design Automation. “When using the AFS Platform as the simulation engine in Variation Designer, we are able to deliver a fast variation analysis and fix capability. Our mutual customers will directly benefit from the performance improvement of the combined flow."

About Berkeley Design Automation

Berkeley Design Automation, Inc. (BDA) is the recognized leader in advanced analog, mixed-signal, and RF (AMS/RF) verification. The BDA Analog FastSPICE unified circuit verification platform (AFS Platform) combines the accuracy, performance, and capacity needed to verify GHz designs in nanometer-scale silicon. Over seventy companies, including 15 of the world's top 20 semiconductor companies, use the AFS Platform to efficiently verify AMS/RF circuits. Founded in 2003, the company has received several industry awards in recognition of its technology leadership and impact on the electronics industry. The company is privately held and backed by Woodside Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, Panasonic Corporation, NTT Corporation, IT-Farm Corporation, and MUFJ Capital. For more information, visit http://www.berkeley-da.com.

About Solido Design Automation

Solido Design Automation, Inc. (Solido) provides software for reducing variation risk in nanometer designs at the transistor level. Solido’s Variation Designer and application packages are used by analog/RF, IO, memory and standard cell digital designers to achieve better designs with reduced variation risk in less time. The privately held company is venture capital funded and has offices in the U.S.A., Canada, Japan and Europe. For further information, visit www.solidodesign.com or call 306-382-4100.

Analog FastSPICE, AFS Nano, and WaveCrave are trademarks of Berkeley Design Automation, Inc. Berkeley Design and BDA are registered trademarks of Berkeley Design Automation, Inc. Any other trademarks or trade names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.