CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
22 March 2005
Product News
Cadence Contribution to Accellera Boosts Efforts to Standardize IC Design Kits for Designers
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced that it has contributed its custom-design schematic symbol set to the OpenKit Initiative. Part of Accellera, the electronics industry organization focused on electronic-design-automation (EDA) standards, the OpenKit Initiative is dedicated to establishing standards for the design kits used by all integrated circuit (IC) designers. These standards are targeted at improving interoperability and cycle time efficiencies across the electronics-design chain, while decreasing custom intellectual property (IP) or IC design costs. The Cadence contribution will form the basis of an open standard for the electronic representation of device symbols.
Design kits provide the design rules, device models, schematic symbols and associated formats required by EDA tools during the design entry, simulation, implementation and verification steps of IC design. With the emergence of the design chain, design kits have become essential for linking semiconductor manufacturers and design teams developing IC-based products. With no current standards, nomenclature, use models, interfaces, quality thresholds, and delivery structures can vary widely, depending on the selection of tools, library or IP and targeted foundry requirements. The OpenKit Initiative has been working to address these problems since January 2004, and the Cadence donation represents a critical first step in creating standards for the design-capture phase of custom IC design.
"This is a great example of how Accellera works with leading EDA companies to accelerate the development of standards important to the growth of our industry," said Dennis Brophy, chairman of Accellera. "Cadence's contribution is the first step in establishing an IEEE standard for a schematic symbol set."
James Roberts, CAD engineer at Qualcomm, the co-chair of the front end working group, added, "As a user of multiple process design kits (PDKs), it has always been frustrating to move designs from one PDK to another and then have to correct the wiring in every circuit because of vendor-specific symbol footprints. This symbol standard will go a long way towards easing that problem."
" Cadence has long been recognized as the de facto standard for device-level schematic symbols," said James Lin, vice president of Technology Infrastructure at National Semiconductor. "Cadence's contribution of their symbol set to an industry-wide, open-standards committee is a significant move towards standardizing design kits."
"Cadence has long been a leader in providing support for open standards across the industry to better serve our customers," said Jan Willis, senior vice president of Industry Alliances at Cadence. "Working with groups such as Accellera and Si2, we are actively involved in defining the standards that are necessary to ensure that software, IP, and libraries interoperate seamlessly in our customers' design and manufacturing environments. This contribution continues to demonstrate our commitment to collaboration, based on open standards, to facilitate the growth of the industry, as well as our customers' success."
Accellera provides design standards for quick availability and use in the electronics industry. The organization and its members cooperatively deliver much-needed EDA standards that lower the cost of designing commercial IC and EDA products.
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