Tools minimize power consumption
By Gabe Moretti -- EDN, June 26, 2003
Two new products from Magma Design Automation target designers of advanced custom ICs. Blast Rail provides a correct-by-construction rail design that minimizes power requirements, voltage drop, and electromigration problems and eliminates the need for postlayout analysis and repair operations. The product's graphical user interface allows visualization and what-if analysis that enable users to plan and implement optimal power-grid configurations. The integrated timing analysis enables designers to understand the impact of delays that voltage drop induces without using an external static-timing analyzer.
Blast Create takes the description of a design at the RTL in either VHDL or Verilog and generates the physical netlist that users can input into either Magma's Blast Fusion or a third-party physical-design tool. Blast Create integrates synthesis, silicon virtual prototyping, full and incremental static-timing analysis, design-for-test analysis and synthesis, and power analysis. Because all of the integrated engines use a common data model, the synthesis engine does not depend on unreliable technology-mapping methods or attempt to predict chip area and timing using inaccurate physical data, such as wire-load models. Blast Create can generate a report that provides early insights into estimates on area, timing, power, and routability of the design based on the virtual-prototype placement and routing. An endpoint-gain report identifies problematic paths. An endpoint with a low gain indicates a delay requirement that may prevent a design from meeting timing requirements.
Both products are available for Solaris and Linux platforms. Blast Rail sells for $160,000 for a three-year, time-based license, and Blast Create costs $225,000 for the same terms.
Magma Design Automation, 1-408-864-2000, www.magma-da.com.
