( SNUG 04 Item 13 ) ---------------------------------------------- [08/11/04]
Subject: Avanti Star-RCXT, Cadence Simplex Fire & Ice, Mentor Calibre-xRC
TWO BIG FISH IN THE POND: There are two big players in the RC extraction
market with a host of 5 smaller tools following up.
Dataquest FY 2002 RC Extraction Market (in $ Millions)
Cadence Simplex & Celestry ############################### $31.3 (45%)
Avanti Star-RCXT ############################## $30.1 (43%)
Mentor Calibre-xRC ##### $4.8 (7%)
Sequence ### $3.0 (4%)
OEA # $0.6 (1%)
Optem . $0.3 (1%)
Silvaco . $0.2 (1%)
On the technical side, Aart's bragging that his Star-RCXT was "4X Faster"
and had "2X Capacity!" truns out to be fairly accurate in the eyes of the
customers. And Aart's 90 nm claim also reads true for at least one user.
8.) Aart claimed in his keynote that Star-RCXT now supports 90 nm and
was "4X Faster, 2X Capacity!" -- in your experience is this real or
B.S.? How do Avanti Star-RC, Cadence Simplex Fire & Ice, Mentor
xCalibre, and Sequence rank in your eyes? Who's ahead? Who's
behind? Which do you currently use?
We have Star-RCXT for 90 nm with good results. In our benchmarks of
Star-RCXT vs. Calibre-XRC, Star shows better capacity and accuracy.
- Jean-Paul Morin of STMicroelectronics
In some cases we use Star-RCXT, in other case we use the XCalibre new
version. Depends on how the config files are written and for what
purpose it is used. Using both.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We use Star-RCXT since it is very stable and works well with our Astro
flow. The TAT is good enough for us.
- Sunil Malkani of Broadcom
Of all the tools this "4X faster, 2X capacity" claim is the most real.
We are Star-RCXT users and haven't seen any significant differentiation
in other tools. Extraction is a commodity now.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We use Star-RCXT.
- Andrew Bell of PMC-Sierra, Inc.
We use Star-RC and like it. We have not taped out a 90 nm chip yet.
xCalibre is cool as well, but have not used them extensively on
large chips.
- Haiming Jin of Intel
I don't have 90nm experience. But for 130 nm we used Star-RCXT for gate
level and transistor level flows. In the beginning, it was a pain to
use it for transistor flow. But now they have resolved that issue. We
did have some issues, related to fab folks not giving the correct inputs
while doing the field solving. One needs to watch out for all these.
With some of the hand calculations, and the silicon results, I feel
Star-RCXT is a good one. There are problems related to accuracy and
correct modeling which one need to watch out. On some small analog
blocks, I did compare the netlists from xCalibre and they both closely
matched. We use Star-RCXT. I am unable to comment on who is ahead,
because of my limited knowledge on other tools, but have a feeling that
they all are pretty close.
- Santhosh Pillai of Parama Networks
We use Star-RCXT. But again since our blocks are fairly small I can't
comment on the capacity question. We're currently working with 180 nm
so don't know anything about what Star can and can not do in 90 nm.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Just Star-RCXT and definetly faster - not sure about 4X though. I have
seen 2X on our designs on the same hardware platform.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Star-RCXT is getting faster.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We use Mentor's Calibre-xRC.
- Joe Dao of Aeluros, Inc.
Used Simplex from ASIC vendor and at 0.13 um. I have no 90 nm work yet.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Our P&R guys use Star-RCXT. No experience on 90 nm yet.
- Juan Carlos Diaz of Agere
We don't use Star-RCXT.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We use either Simplex or Star-RC.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Cadence Assura (we work in a truly mixed-signal environment)
- Marcello Vena of Xignal Technologies AG
In accuracy evaluations compared to QuickCap, Star-RCXT ranks first,
Magma second and Simplex a distant third. Star-RCXT on an Opteron
screams in performance. Actually that could be said of most every
tool, investment in an Opteron platform greatly improves throughput.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Our eval 2 years ago showed Star-RCXT as winner, so we've migrated from
internal RC extract to Star-RCXT. Haven't looked back, can't compare
current versions.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
For parasitic extraction we currently use Assura.
- Marco Oliveira of Chipidea Microelectronica
Using Star-RC
- Erica Wickstrom of PMC-Sierra
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