( SNUG 04 Item 15 ) ---------------------------------------------- [08/11/04]
Subject: Synopsys AstroRail vs. Cadence Simplex VoltageStorm
DEMOCRATS VS. REPUBLICANS: The Dataquest 2002 IR-Drop numbers are a 50/50
dead heat. Literally.
Dataquest FY 2002 IR-Drop Market (in $ Millions)
Synopsys AstroRail ############ $11.7 (51%)
Cadence VoltageStorm ########### $11.0 (48%)
others . $0.2 (1%)
The other new player in this space is the Apache RedHawk tool, but it's too
new to show up on 2 year old Dataquest numbers.
9.) How about IR drop tools like Synopsys AstroRail, Magma BlastRail,
Cadence Simplex VoltageStorm? Which do you use? How about noise
tools like PrimeTime-SI vs. CeltIC vs. Sequence NoiseIT? Who is
ahead? Who is behind? Which do you use?
We use both VoltageStorm and AstroRail.
For noise we have several internal tools.
- Massimo Scipioni of STmicroelectronics
We use AstroRail in production. We have tested VoltageStorm, too. We
also used PrimeTime-SI and CeltIC. All have similar (good) performance.
- Haiming Jin of Intel
Using AstroRail and PrimeTime-SI.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We use AstroRail for IR-drop/EM analysis. Have started to discuss
looking at some tool that can do dynamic anlysis also (like Apache
RedHawk for instance) since this functionallity doesn't exist in
AstroRail, at least not yet.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Used to use Simplex but cost cutting allowed us to move to AstroRail.
General PG mesh checking is stable, hierarchical flow works well. Not
quite the same level of detail as VoltageStorm GDSII or LEF/DEF. One
danger in AstroRail is that the grid can look perfect even with macros
with poor via connections. The default behaviour of AstroRail doesn't
use detailed views of macros, but it can be done.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Took 3 years for AstroRail to correlate with SPICE. Still have
significant issues correlating each version with the one before.
We are looking at Apache.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Our P&R guys use AstroRail for IR drop and CeltIC for SI.
- Juan Carlos Diaz of Agere
For IR-Drop we looked at both AstroRail and VoltageStorm. Diddled with
VoltageStorm. Cadence couldn't outline a working flow, so we moved on.
Now turning on AstroRail.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
Basically, Synopsys does not have an IR drop tool. I do not think
Synopsys R&D understands the IR drop phenomenon exactly. We've been
waiting long enough for Synopsys's development, though. Their
progress is too slow. We've even developed a flow by ourselves that
was verified from the silicon failure.
- Myung Kong of National Semiconductor
Used VoltageStorm and CeltIC; again done at ASIC vendor and we
anaylzed results.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We use AstroRail and VoltageStorm for IR drop but would like to look
into Redhawk. We use PrimeTime-SI over CeltIC or others because it
seems to be a natural extension to PrimeTime.
- Sunil Malkani of Broadcom
Magma BlastRail seems to work fine. Garbage in, garbage out.
But it's reasonable garbage.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We use VoltageStorm.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
We've looked at VoltageStorm but found that doing some back of the
envelope calculations by hand seemed to be a better ROI (just in
time alone).
- Gord Allan of Carleton University (Canada)
Using Cadence VoltageStorm - most capable transistor level analysis.
- Erica Wickstrom of PMC-Sierra
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