Magma Donates Low-Power Technology to Accellera
By Suzanne Deffree -- EDN, September 21, 2006
Magma Design Automation Inc. today announced it has donated specifications for its low-power technology to Accellera, an EDA industry standards organization, as part of Accellera's low-power standardization effort.
The move echoes one made by Synopsys Inc. earlier this week when the EDA player announced it would donate power management commands, SystemVerilog constructs, VHDL constructs, and the Switching Activity Interchange Format to support the Accellera’s efforts.
Magma’s specifications target requirements for logic synthesis, physical synthesis, library modeling, power analysis, special cells, design-for-test and automatic test pattern generation. The donated technologies were developed in response to power concerns from customers in the wireless and consumer markets, Magma said, noting the solution encompasses the entire RTL-to-GDSII design implementation flow.
Specifically, the donation will go to Accellera's Unified Power Format Technical Subcommittee, which is spearheading the effort to bring more standardization to power management within EDA.
"Working closely with our worldwide customers, we've developed effective solutions that address power management challenges in complex SoCs for wireless, handheld, mobile applications," said Kam Kittrell, general manager of Magma's design implementation business unit, in a statement. “We think the entire design and EDA tools community can indeed benefit from our contributions to Accellera 's Unified Power Format Technical Subcommittee."
Magma further described its automated, unified RTL-to-GDSII power management flow as one that requires low-power directives to be specified only once at the start of the flow, eliminating the need to duplicate information and the risk of introducing errors.
"Accellera welcomes Magma's Common Requirements for Low-Power Standardization donation," said Shrenik Mehta, chairman at Accellera, in the statement. "We are very excited to see Magma collaborating with other EDA vendors and users in developing a standard in this area. As a major EDA player, Magma's participation is much appreciated."
