( ESNUG 414 Item 4 ) -------------------------------------------- [06/18/03]

Subject: ( ESNUG 413 #4 ) Apache Addresses The RedHawk Customer Tech Issues

> We had to hack DEF's which were obtained from different flows of blocks
> in different stages of the flow.  Robustness of the LEF/DEF parser for
> handling variations in formats can be improved in RedHawk.
>
>     - Arjun Rajagopal
>       Texas Instruments DSP                      Dallas, TX


From: Henry Lee <henry=user  company=apache-da spot calm>

Hi, John,

To clarify and expand on Arjun's comments regarding RedHawk, we are actively
working on interfacing to Synopsys's Milkyway DB.  I believe this will
eliminate hacking of any LEF/DEF files in the future.  LEF/DEF files are
never perfect and at times open to interpretation so anyone who has used
LEF/DEF in the past has probably had to hack it at one time or another.

Arjun says "The user has to supply the information on explicit decoupling
capacitance cells".   RedHawk has the ability to extract the decoupling cap
and series resistance of explicit decoupling capacitors and the user can 
provide their own explicit decoupling capacitor models.  RedHawk also
extracts the intrinsic capacitance and resistance of standard cells and
macros since these are a  significant source of charge.

The extraction of explicit decoupling cap and intrinsic capacitance of 
cells is part of our library characterization step which relies on NSPICE,
our SPICE simulator.

The runtimes Arjun quoted include reading the design, calculating power, 
extraction and analysis.  We do our own power grid RLC extraction.

As an internal user of our SW, like Arjun, I am also not satisfied with our
error messaging and documentation.  The tool has improved but I think this
is an ongoing process.

    - Henry Lee
      Apache Design Solutions                    Mountain View, CA