ATopTech's Aprisa place and route tool aids Richnex to increase product competitiveness while reducing design cost

SAN JOSE, USA: ATopTech, the leader in next-generation physical design solutions that address the challenges of designing integrated circuits (ICs), has helped Richnex Microelectronics, a subsidiary of Richtek Technology, successfully tape out its next-generation multi-channel video decoder chip with smaller area, less power, better timing and shorter turn-around time. Richnex adopted ATopTech’s Aprisa place and route tool while setting up its internal physical implementation team to increase product competiveness while reducing the design costs.

Richnex Microelectronics’ new chip is a multi-channel analog video (NTSC/PAL) decoder supporting the advanced 960H/650TVL camera for high quality surveillance applications. Increased video resolution and functionality required a high performance analog front end (AFE) and analog-to-digital converter (ADC) modules, as well as millions of digital gates and SRAM modules, all to be integrated within a very tight schedule.

The combination of ease of setup and ease of use in Aprisa enabled the design to be completed with minimum staffing and training. Aprisa’s focus on high quality of results (QoR) allowed Richnex to achieve area and power savings greater than 10 percent compared to an earlier similar design as well as ensuring that the design cleared the tapeout sign-off check, including LVS, DRC, electro-migration, and IR drop, with minimum effort. As a result, Richnex experienced a significant savings over previous schedules from the total design time.

“The maturity and overall quality of Aprisa has helped Richnex migrate the backend implementation from design service to in-house team,” said Shen Tu, president of Richnex Microelectronics. “The success of this project has increased the overall competitiveness of our product significantly.”

“Our technology is designed to benefit both large and small design teams by improving their product values and reducing their overall cost of ownership,” said Jue-Hsien Chern, CEO of Atoptech. “We are pleased to confirm the value of our technology with this successful collaboration with Richnex.”