( ESNUG 488 Item 8 ) -------------------------------------------- [03/25/11]
Editor's Note: I thought this eval below was quite interesting considering
what Magma said in its recent Feb 24 Q3 2011 earnings call:
"FineSim SPICE and FineSim Pro continue to show strong adoption... in
Q3 we signed up more than 10 new FineSim logos all companies that were
not Magma customers before and once users try FineSim they like it."
From what I've heard, Magma SPICE is in memory and custom digital, which
is where the Synopsys HSPICE/CustomSim franchise (HSIM, NanoSim and XA) is
strong; which means Rajeev is taking SPICE market share from Aart. - John
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: [ The Mouse That Roared ]
Subject: Magma FineSim vs. Synopsys HSPICE/CustomSim/HSIM/NanoSim/XA
Hi, John,
For fear of retribution, please keep my name and my company anonymous.
We recently did a detailed feature-by-feature technical comparision of the
Magma SPICE tools vs. the Synopsys SPICE tools. What we found:
Circuit Analyses:
- Both Magma FineSim/FineSim Pro and Synopsys HSPICE/CustomSim tools
offer the baseline ac, dc, and transient analyses.
- Synopsys HSPICE/CustomSim offers RF analysis, statistical eye diagrams,
transient noise analysis (Monte Carlo or stochastic differential
equation approach), and most recently loop stability analysis.
- Both look about equal.
Inputs/Outputs:
- Both support HSPICE, Spectre, and Eldo netlists.
- Both can input post-layout parasitic inputs like SPF, and both have
parasitic reduction.
- Both support digital co-simulation.
- Synopsys HSPICE/CustomSim also allows a mix with behavioral modeling
of Verilog-A, Verilog-AMS, and Verilog-D with wreal support.
- Magma does not differentiate between model types.
- Magma FineSim/FineSim Pro outputs TR0, FSDB, WDF waveform formats;
Synopsys covers those formats and more from its acquisition of
Sandwork / WaveView.
- Both look about equal.
Speed:
- Magma has invested in its SPICE solver technology. Magma FineSim is
showing 3x to 10x faster simulation than Synopsys HSPICE/CustomSim on
single CPU simulations.
- Magma FineSim/FineSim Pro sweet spot has traditionally been custom
digital designs like memory and I/O interfaces. Magma has since
expanded its focus to include large analog/mixed-signal designs like
PLL's, ADC's and DAC's and are getting those kinds of performance
improvements on these blocks.
- Magma appears to have the advantage in speed.
Parallel Processing:
- Due to deep investments in this capability in the last few years,
both Magma and Synopsys now scale nicely with multiple cores;
compared to 1 core, Synopsys claims a 7x speedup on 8 cores with
its new Precision Parallel Technology, and Magma claims about the
same with its Native Parallel Technology which has been around longer.
- The speedups are approximately linear with the number of cores
(at least up to 8 cores).
- Both Magma and Synopsys also support processing on multiple machines
via LSF.
- Both look about equal.
Accuracy/Trustworthiness:
- Synopsys HSPICE has long been considered the "gold standard" for
accuracy; CustomSim and the FineSim/FineSim Pro family have accuracy
comparable to it.
- Both Magma and Synopsys are qualified by TSMC for 65 nm, 40 nm, and
28 nm; Global Foundry's 90 nm and 65 nm flows and Tower/Jazz 180 nm.
All this suggests that there is sufficient capability with Magma at
major foundries.
- Both offerings have software defect rates that are sufficiently low
for it to not be an issue.
- Neither simulator converges on all circuits (unfortunately), but the
coverage for both is dramatically better than a few years ago. For
example, Synopsys claims ~95% convergence on its benchmark suite
compared to ~45% in 2007.
- It looks like HSPICE had the edge, but FineSim has closed the gap
considerably on accuracy.
Capacity:
- Synopsys claims HSPICE can handle up to 10 M elements with 500 K MOS
devices (e.g. the rest could be extracted parasitics); NanoSim with
50 M elements on a mixed-signal SOC or a DRAM with 256 M bits.
- Magma claims to handle up to 1.3 M MOS devices with 30 M additional
parasitic extracted components.
- Magma appears to have the advantage in capacity.
Variation:
- Both support fundamental Monte Carlo analysis.
- Magma FineSim offers statistical measures like mean (gain) and prob
(gain >60) through its Fast Monte Carlo option.
- Magma FineSim has 100x faster algorithms than traditional Monte Carlo
through its "dynamic error-controlled algorithms".
- Looks like Magma has the edge on variation.
Overall, Magma seems to be beating Synopsys primarily in speed, capacity and
variation capabilities.
The other major SPICE simulators we see out there are:
- Cadence Spectre/MMSIM
- Mentor Eldo
- Berkeley Design Automation AFS
- Silvaco SmartSpice
- Agilent Golden Gate
We haven't done a thorough comparison of those simulators, but typically we
see Cadence Spectre, Agilent and Berkeley AFS being used for big analog/
mixed-signal/RF designs, whereas Mentor Eldo and Silvaco SmartSpice are
used for custom digital designs.
- [ The Mouse That Roared ]
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