Leading Taiwanese companies select Synopsys PrimeTime SI for signoff

USA: Synopsys Inc. announced that leading consumer and multimedia companies in Taiwan, including ASMedia, Generalplus and Socle, have adopted Synopsys’ PrimeTime SI tool for static timing analysis (STA) and signal integrity (SI) signoff.

One of the key drivers for PrimeTime SI adoption was the easy-to-deploy, signoff-driven ECO guidance technology with tight links to Synopsys’ Galaxy Physical Implementation tool and IC Compiler.

“Our previous approach of using PrimeTime for timing and an add-on third-party tool for SI left margin on the table and took longer for timing convergence,” said Chi Chang, VP at ASMedia. “We selected PrimeTime SI because we trust the PrimeTime STA foundation that has signoff accuracy to HSPICE. It streamlined our flow and achieved runtime well within our signoff criteria.”

“In an effort to consolidate signoff tools at our global design centers, we evaluated and selected PrimeTime SI because it simplified our signoff flow and enabled a fully signoff-correlated Galaxy solution flow with StarRC and IC Compiler to improve our turnaround-time on high-frequency, low power designs”, said Kevin Lee, senior director at Generalplus.

“We adopted PrimeTime SI due to its signoff-driven ECO flow with IC Compiler as it reduced the ECO iterations and sped up the timing closure for our large, complex designs. Socle will be able to more precisely manage project schedule and provide customers with faster time to market. This technology also increases design performance at advanced nodes and enables a more competitive chip design,” said Stone Peng, CEO and president at Socle.

PrimeTime SI extends the PrimeTime STA and signoff environment to incorporate crosstalk delay and noise (glitch) analysis and next-generation signoff-driven ECO guidance. PrimeTime ECO uses patent-pending techniques to deliver an extremely fast and scalable ECO solution with tight links to IC Compiler to reduce iterations and deliver a predictable timing closure flow.

“Making timing closure more efficient is critical to designing bigger chips with ever-shrinking schedules,” said Robert Hoogenstryd, director of marketing for design analysis and signoff at Synopsys. “By taking advantage of our technology leadership in timing signoff coupled with a highly correlated and integrated physical implementation flow, designers are immediately more productive and can achieve faster timing closure.”