( DAC 03 Item 40 ) ----------------------------------------------- [ 01/20/04 ]
Subject: Sagantec, RubiCAD, Bindkey, In2Fab, Q Design
MISSING IN ACTION: At one of the DAC parties I ran into one of Sagantec my
contacts and he was all giddy that their rival, RubiCAD, had missed DAC. I
thought there was some mistake until I checked. Sure enough RubiCAD wasn't
there. I don't know if RubiCAD is going out of business, but missing a
DAC is one sure sign that they're having some serious, serious troubles. In
other news, Cadence announced that they just acquired Q Design (Marple).
Sagantec - comes in 3 basic flavors: Anaconda, SiClone and SiFix. Each
runs with Companion online within Virtuoso or batch mode.
Anaconda is the analog compactor but they developed in the last 2 years
with a lot of constraints capabilities towards analog migration template
base. Easy design rule entry, reads schematic for target device sizes,
analog symmetry matching constraints, Sub-cell replacement, maintains
Pcells, symbolic, paths, connectivity. A very good tool if you need to
work loose and make it DRC correct or just to migrate from one process to
another. The problem is that in many cases in the analog world the
architecture has to change and not only device sizes. But they are
moving in the right direction, out of the template only style, working to
support the M (multiple) factor for devices, a very used feature in the
analog world. Nice work but needs some refinements. SiClone does most
of the features above but works hierarchical and is able to migrate full
digital blocks. Really for migration and ECO. SiFix is a high capacity
tool that is touching only the objects that are needed: last minute DRC
changes, Yield improvement, ECO-changes (resize devices).
RubiCAD - did not have a booth and Michael Reinhardt said that he is
working on some new ideas for Automated Layout Generation. He actually
wrote a new book related to algorithms and secrets of layout generation
and migration with tools so maybe CAD people will be interested to read
it.
Bindkey - a very interesting addition to Virtuoso editor including 2
tools CLEAN and FIX. Bindkey reads Calibre DRC deck and generates
on-line shades that help a layout designer observe when it may violate
rules. Nice addition to the Virtuoso editor for 15k a year per license
but Cadence is even better in September 2003. The FIX is actually a
compactor that runs hierarchical over the database and is fixing DRC
errors if possible, but does not move boundaries. 200+k for year a seat
is almost as expensive as Sagantec and does a lot less.
- Dan Clein of PMC-Sierra
Sagantec has a new analog compaction tool that slows reuse of analog
designs. It is schematic driven; you change parameters in the schematic,
it changes the layout but maintains symmetry, etc. They also claim that
their tools understand Design for Manufacturing/Yield. Their compaction
tool allows for hierarchical compaction where interconnect is changed
but the standard cells are left untouched.
E-Z-CAD sells a compactor/expander that they say is yield aware, unlike
(they claim) Sagantec and Rubicad. The yield models are parameterized
and the customer inputs the parameters, or they can provide their own
rules. They say they can do 100M transistors overnight and can do
automatic DRC fixes. They say they also understand timing (from
PrimeTime) which they say differentiates them from Sagantec and Rubicad.
Q Design Automation sells a compactor tool. They say it handles hierarchy
better than Sagantec & Rubicad and that it has true 2D compaction,
not 1D+1D.
In2Fab is a British company that sells a tool (OSIRIS) for analog process
migration, as I believe Sagantec does as well. It analyzes design rule
scaling and does fast migration where geometry stays similar. It knows
how to maintain topology instead of compacting things to the max. For
digital process migration they have another tool (ISIS) that will tweak
your netlist (instead of re-synthesis) and then tweak your layout to swap
in the new library. It does not shrink geometries. They have their
own engine for incremental placement, a commercial ECO router and
their own STA tool which they say correlates well with Primetime. They
can use mixed threshold libraries and can do silicon-aware buffering.
- John Weiland of Intrinsix
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