Mentor Combats Shrinking Auto Design Cycle Times

By Ann Steffora Mutschler -- Electronic News, 10/6/2005

Given the $12 billion that automotive manufacturers spent on warranty costs in 2003 and the explosion in electronic content in automobiles, EDA player Mentor Graphics Corp. has gone on the offensive, launching a comprehensive set of electrical and electronic design tools for the automotive market.

Leveraging internally developed technology in a new modeling a simulation tool – SystemVision – along with automotive networking technology from its May acquisition of Volcano Communications Technologies, the Wilsonville, Ore.-based Mentor can now provide a complete design and analysis toolset for electrical distribution systems and associated harnesses, along with embedded system/software and in-vehicle network design, the company said.

As in semiconductor design for other applications, the automotive market has experienced the same kind of pressure with shrinking design windows. Mentor estimates automotive design cycles have gone from approximately 48 months in 1985 to 24 months this year, to shrink to 12 months by 2010.

To address this, Mentor’s tools allow for design reusability of system and subsystem designs and deterministic network design and verification while correct-by-construction and design rules are implemented. Data and change management features also help manage the design process.

Another area of focus for Mentor is the rise of electronic content in automobiles, which has risen from 2 percent of the price of a new vehicle attributed to electronic content in 1974 to 23 percent in 2003, expected to reach 40 percent in 2010.

What is needed here, Mentor contends, are complexity management and the automation of design and verification including hardware/software and mechatronics. Electrical, electronic, and software design automation and system integration with component design are also addressed in the company’s offering, according to Larry Anderson, director of marketing for Mentor’s automotive products.

A third area that Mentor has addressed the need for automotive manufacturers to add that electronic content with less resources, calling for network design automation, composite wire synthesis technology and the automation of the wire harness structure for the product. The ability to view generation of system diagrams and tool features for manufacturing integration is also addressed.

Finally, managing the skyrocketing cost of warranty expenses is an area best addressed at the design stage, Mentor believes. By using system simulation, automation of design and verification, analysis for decision support, network verification and correct by construction and design rules, Anderson explained.

These issues are the foundation for Mentor’s tool suite aimed at addressing the complete automotive electrical/electronic design process, supplemented by Mentor’s involvement in AUTOSAR, the standards organization working to create an open standard for automotive engineering architecture.

Mentor’s new SystemVision tool is aimed at allowing the designer to model systems and components with a virtual prototype and use simulation to perform the critical analyses of electrical, mechanical, thermal and hydraulic sub-systems needed to help ensure successful automotive system design.

The tool is based on a mixed-signal modeling language, VHDL-AMS, which as a vendor- independent standard language allows information exchange between original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and suppliers, reducing communication problems with the concept of executable specifications.

SystemVision is integrated with Mentor’s electrical systems design solution, Capital Harness Systems (CHS), and complements CHS’s unique electrical analysis tool, Capital Analysis.

SystemVision is available today and is priced from $9,000 to $38,000, depending on the options purchased.

Mentor also rounds out its automotive toolset with its embedded software products. The Nucleus family of embedded software products comprises a developers’ toolkit, ranging from UML high-level design tools through to the royalty-free real-time operating system (RTOS) and middleware specifically targeted to automotive applications and processors.

Mentor said it plans to continue expanding its automotive offerings as the growth of in-vehicle electronics and software continues.

Finally, Mentor reported that Magneti Marelli Powertrain S.p.A. has integrated its automotive tools, including SystemVision into its ASIC development flow to achieve a 30 percent reduction in design and simulation time.