SHIN-YOKOHAMA, Japan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center (STARC), the leading Japanese semiconductor industry association, evaluated and selected MunEDA’s EDA tool suite WiCkeD as the circuit design tool of their STARCAD-AMS mixed-signal design flow recommended for the industry. The STARCAD-AMS design flow methodology integrates the best-in-class and best-performing tools for floor planning, constraint-driven design, circuit performance and yield analysis and optimization, schematic layout and co-design, and inter-block co-design for analog and mixed-signal design.
Kunihiko Tsuboi, STARC Senior Manager Mixed-Signal Design Group: ”Design in deep-submicron technologies has to consider many critical issues like large mismatch variation, STI stress, WPE and parasitic effects and others that result in lots of back tracking, increasing design effort, and therefore a further increasing design Turn-Around-Time (TAT). One major goal of the STARCAD-AMS design flow methodology is to reduce this design TAT at least by half. The MunEDA tools suite WiCkeD has shown that it can contribute to this goal significantly and is therefore a recommended tool in the STARCAD-AMS design flow for variation-aware circuit design.”
The selected test case was a differential amplifier, analysed with 5 test-benches to measure 19 design performances at 7 process corners, 2 operating condition variables and mismatch. STARC’s main requirement for evaluated tools were to find an appropriate design parameter sizing to satisfy all electrical specifications, minimize area and reduce mismatch variation in 40% or less of the necessary manual sizing time.
Michael Pronath, MunEDA Vice President Products & Solutions: “We are proud that STARC, one of the largest and powerful semiconductor industry associations worldwide, has selected our products and solutions to enhance their STARCAD-AMS design flow with variation-aware circuit design. Together with STARC and the STARC members we will further develop our tools and flows.”
The STARCAD-AMS design flow methodology is available for industrial use. The results of the WiCkeD evaluation by STARC have been presented by Tatsuya Shirakawa from STARC at the MUGM 2010 MunEDA User Group Meeting in Munich (“WiCkeD in STARCAD-AMS Design Flow”) and will be presented at EDS-Fair2011 in Yokohama. For more information please contact STARC (www.starc.or.jp) and MunEDA (www.muneda.com) directly.
About STARC
The Semiconductor Technology Academic Research Center (STARC) was founded in December 1995 by Japan’s leading semiconductor manufacturers to strengthen its design competitiveness. Shareholders of STARC are Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited, Panasonic Corporation, Renesas Electronics Corporation, Rohm Co.,Ltd., Sanyo Semiconductor Co.,Ltd., Seiko Epson Corporation, Sharp Corporation, Sony Corporation and Toshiba Corporation apart from further members and clients. STARC has since collaborated with universities to expand the semiconductor research infrastructure at Japanese universities; arranged system-on-chip (SoC) design seminars through cooperation between industry and academia to train specialized chip architects; and collectively worked with client companies to develop a suite of technology enablers in order to address design difficulties compounded by the shrinking. The results of these projects have been put to good use among the semiconductor industry.
For more information www.starc.or.jp
About MunEDA
Founded in 2001 MunEDA provides with the software tool suite WiCkeDTM leading EDA technology for analysis, modelling, optimization and verification of performance, robustness and yield of analog, mixed-signal and digital designs. MunEDA products and solutions enable customers to reduce the design times of their circuits and to maximize quality and yield. MunEDA solutions are in industrial use by leading semiconductor companies worldwide in the areas of communication, computer, memories, automotive, and consumer electronics. MunEDA has offices and partner offices in Germany, USA, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, UK & Ireland, Singapore, Malaysia, Scandinavia and others to serve a worldwide customer base. For more information, please visit MunEDA at www.muneda.com.
For MunEDA sales & support in Japan contact MunEDA’s Japan distributors NCS Nippon Control System Corporation with http://www.nippon-control-system.co.jp/products/muneda and IPN International Professional Networks Corporation with http://www.ipncorp.com/muneda/mun_eda.html.
WiCkeDTM is a trademark of MunEDA GmbH. All other are trademarks and registered trademarks of their specific owners.