CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
4 April 2005
Product News
Magma's Cobra Products Now Available
Magma® Design Automation Inc . announced the availability of its next generation of design software, the result of its recent 18-month-long Cobra development initiative. The products resulting from the Cobra project - which comprise Magma's 2005.03 release - include both new products and enhanced capabilities to existing Magma software, such as Blast CreateT, Blast Fusion®, Blast Noise® and Blast PlanT Pro.
"The 18-plus months that have gone into this effort have delivered products that will significantly expand design options available to our customers as they do more and more design work at 90 and 65 nanometers," said Rajeev Madhavan, Magma's chief executive officer. "Many of the capabilities that the Cobra project delivers are the result of strategic acquisitions we have made in the last few years - small, early-stage companies that brought us talented technologists who could make key contributions to Magma's design system. Cobra continues Magma's innovation leadership in EDA by rounding out our existing IC implementation flow and broadening our product line."
Among the new capabilities the Cobra release provides are:
• Timing, noise and power "Signoff in the Loop"T with SSTA (static statistical timing analysis)
• A single design platform for all IC (integrated circuit) silicon architectures, including FPGAs, structured ASIC and standard cell
• DFT (design-for-test) automation
• Integrated yield optimization
• Next-generation DRC/LVS (design rule checking/ layout-versus-schematic) architecture
• Automated hierarchical design flow and interconnect synthesis
"A key element in the Cobra release is the integration of timing, noise, power, test and yield signoff into the implementation flow," Madhavan continued. "This further reduces effort and implementation time by delivering a correct-by-construction flow."
New Products
The new 2005.03 release expands Magma's portfolio with several new products:
Quartz RCT: Provides signoff-quality parasitic extraction and can operate as either a standalone tool or integrated with the Blast Fusion system, where it underlies the "Signoff in the Loop" flow.
Quartz RC delivers accuracy that is closely correlated to QuickCap® - Magma's 3-D extractor that is considered the gold standard for accuracy in parasitic extraction - while providing predictable results compared to Blast Fusion's fast implementation extractor.
Quartz TimeT: This new product combines the proven static timer in Magma's Blast Fusion with advanced timing capabilities to create a standalone signoff timing system. Designed to complement the built-in signoff system of Blast Fusion QT, Quartz Time extends support to independent signoff verification flows that do not require a full Blast Fusion system, such as ASIC customers. Quartz Time includes the ability to perform concurrent analysis with multi-corner operating conditions, multiple operating modes, on-chip variation (OCV), and the use of the advanced ECSM delay model. Quartz Time also includes crosstalk noise and delay analysis, as well as support for multi-voltage design and timing impact of IR drop delay.
Blast Fusion® QT : Blast Fusion QT provides advanced capabilities that enable "Signoff in the Loop" timing analysis with concurrent optimization. This includes the ability to perform concurrent analysis and optimization with multi-corner operating conditions, multiple operating modes, on-chip variation (OCV) and the use of the advanced ECSM delay model. This product provides designers access to a signoff timing analysis engine within the implementation flow, eliminating the need to iterate with external signoff tools, thereby providing tremendous improvements in design turnaround times.
Blast DFTT: Integrated design for test provides advanced testability. This DFT automation includes advanced BIST capabilities for logic and memory, including built-in self-repair capabilities. Magma's physically aware DFT solutions provide enormous productivity and represent an end-to-end test solution that interoperates with testers.
Quartz SSTAT: This new product accounts for process variations and provides a parametric yield analysis capability for the design, providing parametric extraction and SSTA simultaneously. The SiliconSmart® characterization and modeling tools of Magma's Silicon Correlation Division provide the statistical library models required by SSTA.
Quartz DRCT and Quartz LVST: These products result from Magma's acquisition of Mojave Design and are targeted to provide the fastest turnaround time of any physical verification tools, with a goal of verifying any design in less than 2 hours. Improved manufacturability is also provided via superior modeling capabilities for 90- and 65-nm technologies.
Blast PlanT FX : Blast Plan FX provides automated hierarchical design capabilities such that hierarchical design projects should no longer be viewed as risky undertakings, but instead as the preferred way to manage and complete large, complex SoCs (systems on chip). It includes advanced new algorithms for physical partition placement and shaping, channel sizing, and relative constraint extraction and execution, as well as providing automation for taking a complete hierarchical chip from RTL to GDSII in a deterministic, repeatable fashion throughout the design cycle.
Blast YieldT: A comprehensive design-for-yield (DFY) solution, tightly integrated within Magma's RTL-to-GDSII implementation flow. It incorporates multiple techniques to optimize the design for parametric and functional yield - both cell and wire yield - without compromising timing or area, thereby enabling designers to maximize the yield potential of their designs and achieve cost savings.
New Capabilities
The Cobra release also brings new capabilities to the existing components of Magma's IC implementation design flow, including the addition of interconnect synthesis. "With interconnect synthesis, optimization is performed in the routing phase, rather than relying on logic optimization during logic synthesis as has historically been done," said Premal Buch, general manager of Magma's Design Implementation Business Unit. "Optimization in logic synthesis alone was insufficient as wireload models started failing at 0.18 micron and below, and Magma innovated to provide the first successful physical synthesis tool set, which combined placement and optimization. At 90 nanometers and below, wire delay and the effect of their neighbors contribute to almost all deep-submicron effects. We now know that more and more of the optimization has to be done as wires are assigned to tracks and are being routed. This move to combine optimization and routing requires a new flow with a new approach - interconnect synthesis. Besides comprehending cell delay and wire delay, which logic and physical synthesis tools did, now with interconnect synthesis shapes and switching of neighboring wires are comprehended."
Another advancement is Magma's "Unified Platform SynthesisT," a single synthesis engine that implements RTL into standard cell, FPGA and Structured ASIC platforms. Optimization is performed through placed gates for all platforms to deliver the best timing, area and power of any solution. This provides simple platform retargeting with predictable results, allowing users to make accurate trade-off analysis early and repeatedly in the design cycle to determine the best-cost solution that meets requirements.
Availability
Each of the products developed in the Cobra initiative are currently in limited release with a number of Magma customers, with general releases expected to begin in June 2005.
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