Fresco Microchip adopts Berkeley Design Automation analog FastSPICE platform for RF silicon TV tuners

SANTA CLARA, USA: Berkeley Design Automation Inc., provider of the world’s fastest nanometer circuit verification, announced that Fresco Microchip Inc., a developer of leading-edge RF, mixed-signal, and digital signal processing integrated circuits, has adopted the company's Analog FastSPICE (AFS) Platform for block-level characterization and full-circuit verification of the company’s Simply RF silicon TV tuners.

“Our Simply RF silicon TV tuners require extensive block characterization and full-circuit performance simulation,” said Dr. Stephen Jantzi, director of Analog/RF Design at Fresco Microchip. “In conjunction with BDA’s excellent support, the AFS Platform provides the accuracy and performance capability we need for circuit verification of our industry-leading products. We have seen as much as 15x speed-up over traditional SPICE on our mixed-signal circuits.”

The Analog FastSPICE Platform is the world’s fastest nanometer circuit verification platform for analog, RF, mixed-signal, and custom digital circuits. The AFS Platform delivers foundry-certified nanometer SPICE accuracy 5x-10x faster than any other simulator on a single core and an additional 2x-4x performance with multithreading. For circuit characterization, the AFS Platform includes the industry’s only comprehensive silicon-accurate device noise analysis and delivers near-linear performance scaling with the number of cores.

For large circuits, it delivers >10M-element capacity, the industry’s fastest near-SPICE-accurate simulation, and mixed- analog-digital co-simulation with leading Verilog simulators. Available licenses include AFS circuit simulation, AFS Transient Noise Analysis, AFS RF Analysis, AFS Co-Simulation, and AFS Nano SPICE.

“As a market leader in the TV industry, we are delighted that Fresco Microchip has adopted the AFS Platform for their game-changing silicon tuner verification flow,” said Ravi Subramanian, president and CEO of Berkeley Design Automation. “Fresco's selection of the AFS Platform further validates the strong competitive advantage Berkeley Design Automation provides to leading-edge designers of highly-integrated analog/ RF and mixed-signal applications.”