Integrand's EMX validated for TSMC's RF Reference Design Kit 2.0

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, USA: Integrand Software Inc. announced that its Electromagnetic (EM) simulator EMX has been validated for TSMC's RF Reference Design Kit (RF RDK) 2.0 inclusion.

The flow works within the Cadence(R) Virtuoso(R) environment and includes a complete validated tutorial demonstrating an EM reference design flow for a Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) designed in TSMC's 65-nanometer RF CMOS process.

The technology deployed by Integrand includes its flagship EM simulator EMX and interface to the Cadence Virtuoso custom design platform. The Cadence technologies deployed include the Virtuoso platform, including Cadence's Multi-mode Simulation (MMSim), physical verification system, and QRC extraction.

"EMX has been included to work with the EM sub flow of the TSMC RF RDK 2.0. This allows our mutual customers to access Integrand's EMX from within the TSMC PDK," said Tom Quan, deputy director of design methodology and service marketing at TSMC. "The approach has been validated by the RDK showing good agreement with TSMC reference results."

"Integrand is pleased to support TSMC's RF RDK. Our mutual customers will love the fact that EMX can be used from within the TSMC PDK. EMX can be used for simulation and modeling of sensitive or custom circuitry -- where high accuracy is critical -- and then combine the resulting models with parasitic extraction of less-critical nets using a layout parasitic extractor for final post-layout simulation flow," said Dr. Sharad Kapur, president of Integrand.

"EMX is already being used by TSMC for generating all the scalable models for inductors in the TSMC PDK. This new ability to do custom design of components and of critical circuitry using EMX directly from within the PDK, will improve the design productivity and time to market for our mutual customers."

"Integrand's membership in the Cadence Connections program has enabled it to develop a seamless interface to our products and to provide immediate and broad availability and deployability of this advanced RF RDK from TSMC," said David Desharnais, group director, product management, Cadence. We are delighted to work with Integrand to provide the industry with the best-in-class solution for RFIC design."

The complete EM capability within the RF RDK -- with documentation, VCO circuit example, and validated flow tutorial -- will be available in July 2010 to selected TSMC 65-nanometer customers worldwide, giving designers an opportunity to learn about the integrated solution.