( ESNUG 585 Item 3 ) ---------------------------------------------- [11/20/18]
Subject: Movellus Mo's 6+ GHz 100% tweakable auto-generated PLLs/DLLs/LDOs
DAC'18 Troublemakers Panel in San Francisco
Cooley: Mo.
Mo: Yes.
Cooley: I like you on this panel because you're like 1/2 a user and 1/2
a maker. Because Movellus makes IP, so you actually use the
tools that these guys make. But you're doing something crazy.
You're making an analog IP simulator.
Mo: That's right. "Generator".
Cooley: I've seen this before with Barcelona, Neolinear, Ciranova...
Mo: Barcelona was a long time ago I think I was still in grade school
back then.
(laughter)
So yeah, we're different. Instead of bringing analog synthesis
and analog automatic layout to analog, what we are bringing
in are analog circuits into the digital domain.
So how we do it? We have proprietary architectures that perform
the analog functionality but then we leverage the 50 years
of research and development that's been done in digital. So
that's how we achieve it and our implementation is much, much
faster. Hours versus man-months.
And also, the timing is right, right now. Now analog is the
hardest to do. You know try doing layout in 5 nanometer. It's
the hardest to do right now.
And also the tools are at their best. The digital tools do have
the accuracy that's needed to now perform and verify analog
functionality.
Cooley: That's a crazy idea. I don't understand how you do scan
insertion on an Op Amp!
Mo: No, you design circuits that don't need Op Amps. Don't need
biases. Don't need bias currents. Don't need voltage reference.
That's how you do it.
Cooley: Uhhh...
Mo: Exactly, right? The new guy. (laughter)
Cooley: Okay....
Mo: He's speechless, done. Panel's over.
Sawicki: You've left him wordless.
Cooley: It's just weird. Okay I'll just say it. Why can't I just...
I'll just buy a True Circuit PLL and I'm happy.
You're doing a PLL generator. Whoopdie do. I can just buy a
True Circuit PLL that I know works. And TSMC says "yeah those
things work".
Mo: Sure, you can do that. But what happens if you want to customize
it? What happens if suddenly you realize that you want to do a
different metal stack you know two weeks before the tape out?
Cooley: Well I can talk to True Circuits, and say, "Can I get a different
one?"
Mo: TCI cannot turn it around in a matter of weeks -- while we can
turn it around in a matter of hours. Not only that, but actually
have all the digital advantages also. You know, DFT, the
testability, not having to do all the fancy masks -- all those
benefits that you cannot get from anywhere else.
Cooley: How can you do a ... picosecond ... PLL on a process that's
doing picosecond? I don't get it. You're probably doing
slow PLLs, right?
Mo: No, we're doing very fast PLLs. So, the fastest one we've done
is 6 GHz...
Cooley: Let's see some speeds.
Mo: 6 GHz. 6 GHz all the way down to 200 KHz. So, we cover the
entire market when it comes to clocking. So we can do
sub-picosecond jitters.
We can meet or beat the analog performance. It's fundamental
physics. It's power, it's phase noise, it's jitter; and you
just trade off those things in an intelligent way.
Cooley: Are these processors purely just for PLL or is it generalized?
Mo: It's a generalized technology. Actually, we also have DLLs. We
have LDOs, and we're going to expand into some really really
interesting blocks coming up so stay tuned.
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