Mentor Graphics announces Calibre xACT 3D for fast and accurate extraction using 3D field solver technology

WILSONVILLE, Ore., June 8, 2010 – Mentor Graphics Corp. has announced the Calibre xACT 3D product for high performance parasitic RC extraction featuring the high accuracy of a deterministic field solver combined with the performance of traditional, rule-based production extraction tools.

“Extraction accuracy is a growing problem at advanced nodes,” said Prasad Subramaniam, vice president of Design Technology at eSilicon. “Designers need extraction accuracy in the 3 percent range to ensure that their designs will meet target performance requirements, but this accuracy needs to be achieved with tool runtimes that work with aggressive tapeout schedules. These two divergent requirements drive the market need for solutions like Mentor’s Calibre xACT 3D offering.”

“Our customers require reference-level extraction accuracy to ensure realistic simulation of complex devices manufactured at 45nm and beyond,” said Stephen Fu, director of the IPDS division at UMC.

“At the same time, they also need an extraction tool that performs significantly faster than existing field solver solutions to maintain fast turnaround time. Calibre xACT 3D meets these requirements by delivering reference-level accuracy with break-through performance compared to other field solvers, and competitive performance compared to more traditional rule- and pattern-based solutions.

“We are very impressed with this combination of accuracy and performance. In addition, xACT 3D’s full integration with Calibre nmLVS and the overall Calibre flow makes adoption painless for our customers. As a result, we are including Calibre xACT 3D as one of our reference signoff extraction tools both for internal UMC IP development and for use by our foundry customers.”

“Calibre xACT 3D is the first ‘no-compromise’ solution for high-accuracy, transistor-level extraction,” said Joseph Sawicki, vice president and general manager for the Design-to-Silicon division at Mentor Graphics.

“With a new architecture that overcomes the performance limitations of traditional field solvers, and full integration into the Calibre physical verification and DFM flow, Calibre xACT 3D delivers reference-level accuracy in a high-performance product that meets the cycle time requirements of our customers.”

Field solver accuracy with rule-based performance
The Calibre xACT 3D product solves the traditional dilemma of extraction accuracy versus performance by providing a true field solver extraction solution with error less than 3 percent, but without the penalty of slow turnaround time.

It features a deterministic field solver built on advanced software algorithms to accurately calculate parasitic effects at speeds up to an order of magnitude faster than existing field solvers.

Additionally, the Calibre xACT 3D implementation scales linearly, so users can add multiple CPUs to achieve turn-around times that were previously only available with less accurate rule-based methods. The Calibre xACT 3D tool accurately and efficiently models advanced process effects and process variation, and handles both flat and hierarchical designs for full chips, or selected blocks and nets.

In contrast to other field solvers that use Monte-Carlo based methods, the Calibre xACT 3D engine employs deterministic techniques that produce consistent results for total and coupling capacitances without the statistical outliers that can be a problem with Monte Carlo approaches.

The Calibre xACT 3D product is a complete extraction solution. It performs device decomposition, geometry pre-processing, parasitic modeling, reduction and net-listing steps, making it completely compatible with existing verification and simulation flows. It works intimately with Calibre nmLVS and includes engines for resistance and (optionally) inductance modeling in addition to the 3D field solver for capacitance.

The Calibre xACT 3D product can reuse existing Calibre xRC and Calibre nmLVS rule decks with only minor updates, and it shares the same Calibre results database as other Calibre tools for higher productivity and reliability. It is also integrated with the familiar Calibre layout editor GUI, debugger, and net-listers.

Designers can use the Calibre xACT 3D and xRC tools together, loading runs for both tools into the Calibre results database if desired. Because it is also integrated with Calibre DFM tools, such as Calibre LFD and Calibre CMPAnalyzer, the Calibre xACT 3D product can also provide data for variability analysis to account for distortions that occur during the manufacturing process, which further improves modeling accuracy.

Calibre xACT 3D is available now.