CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
28 May 2008
Implementation Investments
Zensys Selects Berkeley Design Automation Analog FastSPICE™ for Wireless Transceiver Verification
Berkeley Design Automation Inc., provider of Precision Circuit Analysis™ technology for advanced analog and RF integrated circuits (ICs), announced that Zensys, developer of the Z-Wave wireless home control standard and a family of low-cost, low-power integrated transceiver chips embedded with Z-Wave, has selected the company's Analog FastSPICE™ circuit simulator for complex-block characterization and full-circuit performance simulation of its fully integrated RF communication module.
“Verifying our RF communication module requires extensive transistor-level simulation of a complete RF transceiver with the highest possible accuracy,” said Tony Shakib, Chief Executive Officer at Zensys. “Analog FastSPICE completed characterization of our RF transceiver, including a complex sigma-delta modulator, more than 5x faster than our traditional SPICE simulator with true SPICE accuracy. With Analog FastSPICE we will be able to tapeout with higher confidence and get our products to market faster.”
Berkeley Design Automation tools include Analog FastSPICE™ circuit simulation, Noise Analysis Option™ device noise analyzer, RF FastSPICE™ periodic analyzer, and PLL Noise Analyzer™. The company guarantees identical waveforms to the leading "golden" SPICE simulators down to noise floor (typically 0.1% or less) while delivering 5x-10x higher performance and 5x-10x higher capacity. It achieves this by using advanced algorithms and numerical analysis techniques to rapidly solve the full-circuit matrix and the original device equations without any shortcuts that could compromise accuracy.
Design teams from top-10 semiconductor companies to leading startups use Berkeley Design Automation tools to solve big analog/RF verification problems. Typical applications include characterizing complex blocks (e.g., PLLs, ADCs, DC:DC converters, PHYs, Tx/Rx chains) and running performance simulation of full circuits (e.g., wireless transceivers, wireline transceivers, high-speed I/O macros, memories, microcontrollers, data converters, and power converters).
“We are excited that Zensys selected Analog FastSPICE for the verification of their RF technology for interoperable home control devices,” said Ravi Subramanian, president and CEO of Berkeley Design Automation. “Effective design verification of complex analog/RF circuits for ultra-low power RF mesh networking products requires true SPICE accuracy to enable delivery of high-quality products to the consumer market. We are proud to help Zensys dramatically accelerate their analog/RF circuit verification.”
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