Engineering prototyping gets hot

-- EDN, 12/7/2000

HotStage 3, the latest release of Zuken's Engineering Prototyping product, allows designers to perform pretransmission simulation. Designers can use HotStage 3 as a virtual scratchpad to identify viable design strategies, define topologies, and constrain the design for high-speed performance. The tool allows designers to evaluate signal integrity with respect to clock frequency, drivers and receivers, transmission-line impedance, and other parameters at the design-capture stage.

To improve model availability, HotStage 3 comes with a simulation library containing models for all current device technologies, which you can use as is or as a source of buffer models for user-defined parts. Additionally, you can use IBIS or HSpice models as a source of model data. The simulator automatically imports and verifies the IBIS data, so that you can perform accurate signal-integrity simulations.

HotStage 3 combines fully functional placement and routing, online simulation, intelligent constraints management, and graphical entry for net topologies and layer stackups. It allows you to concurrently handle both signal-integrity and manufacturing constraints, thus linking design and manufacturing. The product comes in three packaging options. Price for HotStage Interactive starts at $15,000. HotStage Automatic costs $41,000, and HotStage Professional costs $56,000.

Zuken, www.zuken.com.

—by Gabe Moretti