Version 2.0 of NeoCell, Neolinear's automated analog physical-synthesis software, includes an autointeractive placer that provides higher quality automatic layouts and better layout density than the earlier version provided. New capabilities include device grouping with programmable guard rings, highly matched precision structures, multiple symmetry lines, and proximity matching. NeoCell creates design-rule-checking-correct layouts by allowing specification of exact relative positions, including alignments and symmetries in a grid. NeoCell allows exact control over topology and sizing of nets. The router enables current-driven net sizing and a flexible topology language that supports topology definition. The software also offers context-sensitive-spacing and end-of-line-halo rules. NeoCell Version 2.0 costs $187,500 for a perpetual license. The product is also available for an annual fee of $75,000 with a multiyear time license.

Neolinear, www.neolinear.com.

Synopsys Inc's Physical Compiler 2.0 physical-synthesis tool improves RTL-to-placed-gates support. It includes optimization algorithms that provide better critical-path timing and total negative slack. With Physical Compiler 2.0, Synopsys fully upgrades the complete physical-synthesis flow by allowing seamless integration of power optimization, structured datapath synthesis, and scan-chain-ordering technologies. The integrated technologies come from Power Compiler, Module Compiler, and DFT (design-for-test) Compiler enhanced products. Physical Compiler 2.0 helps designers increase the quality of results in designs using an RTL-to-placed-gates design flow versus a gate-level flow and integrates Power Compiler, which provides an automatic intelligent placement of clock-gating cells to ensure the lowest power consumption and best possible timing. With Module Compiler, users of Physical Compiler 2.0 can, within a single flow, unify synthesis and placement in datapath designs defined in MCL (Module Compiler Language). The unified flow helps designers achieve improved timing and area by automatically generating and preserving the relative placement of the datapath functions. Physical Compiler 2.0 is available under a one-year technology-subscription license. The price starts at $207,000. Current DC Ultra customers may upgrade to Physical Compiler for $135,000 for a one-year technology-subscription license.

Synopsys Inc, www.synopsys.com.

The new Calibre Interactive tool from Mentor Graphics lets you perform block and cell physical verification from within layout environments, such as Cadence's Virtuoso. It provides an integrated cell-, block-, and chip-verifi-cation environment; interactive access to design-rule checking and layout-versus-schematics checking; and the ability to graphically debug verification results without leaving the layout environment. Designers invoke all three of these capabilities via a GUI they call directly from the layout tool's pull-down menu. Mentor Graphics believes that using Calibre throughout the flow facilitates design integration and reduces design-cycle time. Calibre Interactive is compatible with Calibre; thus, Calibre users can continue to use full-chip-rule files for block and cell verification. The use of one tool means that project teams need to maintain only one verification flow. Prices for Calibre Interactive start at $80,000.

Mentor Graphics, 1-503-685-7000, www.mentor.com.

Module cuts cost, design time.

Router offers graph-based engine.

Tool strengthens virtual prototyping.

Innoveda's Visual Elite tool enables engineers to design from the system level down to RTL. Visual Elite V2 provides virtual-prototyping capabilities that allow designers to create a virtual model of the system hardware along with the software interface early in the software-design flow. It integrates with Innoveda's V-CPU and Regent tools in a single system-level design flow. Users can create high-level functional and architectural models and estimate the performance of the functional model for hardware/software partitioning. Users can define high-level events and data flow, such as bus or network transactions, data-processing events, cause-and-effect relationships, and error conditions in the system. You have a choice of mixed SystemC, C/C++, VHDL, and Verilog modeling to design at various levels of abstraction. Prices start at $20,000.

Innoveda Inc, 1-508-480-0881, www.innoveda.com.

"Get physical"—and signal—simulation.

The Windows-based Commsim simulation environment from Electronics Workbench models analog, digital, or mixed-signal networks and communication systems at the signal and physical levels. The product provides more than 200 blocks of communication and math functions, letting you perform modeling and simulation without writing new code. Typical applications include satellite, cell-phone, and RF systems. Commsim's GUI lets you build a design by dragging blocks from a menu to the workspace and then wiring them together. It offers both hierarchical and embedded compound blocks. Once you design a system, you can simulate it in continuous-time, discrete-time, or hybrid mode. You can use the simulator in interactive or batch mode, and it offers an auto-restart option as well as single-step mode for debugging. Licenses for the commercial versions of the product start at $995 for Commsim Pro, offering a maximum of 100 blocks per system diagram, and $4995 for PowerPro with unlimited system blocks per design.

Electronics Workbench, www.electronicsworkbench.com.

 

Get Web-based design help.

The Webench 2.0 Web-based workbench from National Semiconductor provides wireless, power, and thermal simulators. You can access Webench 2.0 for free at www.webench.national.com. The Webench tools include EasyPLL for simulating PLL designs, the WebSim simulation tool, and WebTherm for thermal design and analysis. National Semiconductor developed WebSim in cooperation with Transim Corp (www.transim.com). The updated design flow now integrates the Switchers Made Simple software. The process allows engineers to build power-supply circuits, select from more than 2000 components from a large selection of vendors, perform online simulations, create physical layouts, and develop prototypes within the same environment. You can access WebSim at www.power.national.com. National Semicondutor developed WebTherm in cooperation with Flomerics Corp (www.flomerics.com). WebTherm combines physical layout with thermal modeling to generate full-color thermal images of board designs. You access Webtherm through www.power.national.com. WebTherm produces a thermal picture by calculating the heat transfer and interaction between components on the board and the environment to generate junction temperatures at the die level.

National Semiconductor, www.national.com.

TEST & MEASUREMENT

Four million DMM users probably aren't wrong.

Fluke Corp's 170 series of handheld digital multimeters replaces the 70 series with 4 million units sold. The three members of the 170 cost $169 to $209. The new units provide a 6000-count display for most measurements. Two of the models offer backlit displays and, in measuring dc voltage, exhibit a maximum basic inaccuracy of ±0.09% of reading. With an ac-voltage input, all units can measure frequency of 2 Hz to 100 kHz (30 kHz maximum with a current input) with a maximum error of ±0.1% of reading +1 count. Measurements of ac voltages (0.1 mV to 1000V) and currents (0.01 mA to 10A) respond to the waveform's true-rms value. The ac-accuracy specifications cover waveforms with a maximum crest factor of 3 and a frequency of 45 Hz to 1 kHz. Resistance measurements cover 0.1Ω to 50 MΩ.

Fluke Corp, 1-888-492-7550, www.fluke.com.

Protocol analyzer simulates DSL networks.

The Liberator Pro is the world's first DSL-protocol analyzer, claims Broadframe. The $33,950, 9-lb, 3.46×13.5×9.64-in. benchtop unit connects to the central-office-side host PC system via 10BaseT Ethernet and to the CPE via a phone line. The device, which you use during the development and testing of new CPE and CPE-based applications, captures DSL packets traveling in both directions over the phone line. It incorporates a full central-office-side network simulator, which encapsulates several popular ADSL protocols and configures and monitors ADSL-link parameters. The central-office-side PC system runs an application that provides the GUI for protocol analysis and enables you to configure system parameters and select encapsulation protocols, IP addresses, and PPP parameters.

Broadframe Corp, 1-512-373-4225, www.broadframe.com.

DSO+logic analyzer+new tool=faster, more accurate signal-integrity measurements.

Tektronix's iView package at an estimated price of $1750 combines hardware and software that runs in its TLA600 and TLA700 series logic analyzers to greatly simplify using the instruments with the company's TDS7000 and TDS3000 scopes and the TDS684C and TDS694C scope models. Easy to upgrade, the logic analyzers include a CD-ROM drive. Two of the iView package's most appealing features are its ability to display analog-scope waveforms on the logic-analyzer screen, which lets you superimpose analog and digital pictures to correlate signal aberrations with performance problems, and its system architecture, which eliminates the need for calibration. The package also facilitates cross-triggering of the scope and logic analyzer.

Tektronix Inc, 1-800-426-2200, www.tektronix.com.

Instruments simplify logic analysis.

Agilent Technologies' 1680 and 1690 series of analyzers both perform 200-MHz state analysis, timing analysis to 800 MHz, and transitional-timing analysis to 200 MHz. The 1680 and 1690 series provide a home view that displays the logic waveforms and the software listing. You can cut or copy data from these views to an electronic notebook and install the logic-analyzer software on a separate PC where you can work on the notebook and carry out further analysis offline. Units in the 1690 series, for which you supply the host PC, cost $4995 to $20,000. Units in the more traditional 1680 benchtop family cost $10,500 to $27,000.

Agilent Technologies, 1-800-452-4844, www.agilent.com/find/benchtops1.

Portable scopes increase productivity.

Tektronix's lunch-box-sized TDS 3000 series is one of the most successful scope families. Offered with no change in size and at essentially the same prices ($9995 max), the 100-, 300-, and 500-MHz; two- and four-channel; real-time-sampling, TDS 3000B-series digital-phosphor oscilloscopes offer new productivity-enhancing features. The WaveAlert feature determines which waveforms are statistically significant and displays the anomalous ones so that they stand out from typical signals. Upon detection of an anomaly, the scope can stop acquisition, sound an alarm, write the anomalous waveform to disk, or print the waveform on an optional strip printer that plugs into the back of the scope. The built-in Ethernet interface and Web server allows an engineer far away from the scope to use a standard Web browser to view waveforms and manipulate the controls. VocalLink articulates what you have said, so you needn't peer at the screen to see whether it heard you correctly. The scopes start at $3395.

Tektronix Inc, 1-800-426-2200.

 

Jitter analyzers yield test results in record time.

LeCroy's J-250 and J-260 series allow you to pinpoint the nature and causes of jitter with unprecedented speed and accuracy. LeCroy specifies 3-sigma error of 1 psec. The J-250 and J-260 families are simply digital oscilloscopes that let you access many specialized capabilities via one-button controls but also provide displays especially designed for jitter testing. Specialized measurement modes include half-period-jitter determination on double-data-rate clocks and modulation analysis of spread-spectrum clocks. The instruments' signal-processing capabilities allow you to view jitter with high resolution in the time and the frequency domains. An optional differential and single-ended edge conditioner simplifies measurements on differential buses. From $35,180 to $49,990; the edge conditioner costs $2490.

LeCroy Corp, 1-800-453-2769, www.lecroy.com.

Windows-based data-acquisition software bypasses Windows' message queue.

Data Translation's Measure Foundry package may eliminate the need for special computing hardware. Developers can use the $495 software package and computing hardware for developing and implementing hard-real-time-control applications. The intuitive user interface lets you drag and drop function blocks from graphical panels onto the desktop and use the blocks' property sheets to specify the processing parameters and the sources of the signals to be processed.

The applications' predictable delays come from Measure Foundry's use of a patent-pending architecture that the company developed for its other application-development package, Vision Foundry. Both packages bypass Windows' normal message queue. Data Translation allows you to freely distribute Measure Foundry applications without paying per-user license fees.

Data Translation Inc, 1-508-481-3700, www.datx.com.

RF-vector-network analyzers make short work of difficult measurements.

E8364A, the PNA-series flagship, replaces the 85107A and provides the fastest measurements, highest dynamic range, and lowest trace noise of any 50-GHz network analyzer. Starting at $105,000, the unit is a two-port, four-receiver design that offers sweep speeds as fast as 35 µsec/point, 103-dB dynamic range, and 0.02-dB-rms trace noise at 50 GHz. The $36,000 two-port, three-receiver E8800 series aims at component manufacturers that require PNA-level performance and must configure analyzers for their needs but that do not need a fourth receiver for on-wafer and in-fixture measurements. The $41,000 N3380A instruments are three-port, four-receiver designs that allow the measurement of all nine S-parameters in three sweeps and include full three-port calibration for design and test of low-isolation devices. Both series offer frequencies to 3, 6, and 9 GHz.

The new ENA-series Windows-based instruments allow integration into ATE systems and have advanced features for measuring balanced and multiport devices. Series models, starting at $28,000 cover frequencies to 3 and 8.5 GHz with prices starting at $35,000.

Agilent Technologies, 1-800-452-4844, www.agilent.com .

System enables contactless probing of deep-submicron ICs.

Schlumberger offers an alternative to mechanical probing with a system that still obtains information about circuits' internal behavior. Using technology licensed from IBM, the IDS Pica (picosecond-imaging-circuit-analyzer) system allows design and failure-analysis engineers to measure voltages and observe transient operating conditions without touching the chips. The chip under test "broadcasts" information about itself by emitting photons, which the system automatically notes as entries in a database. The system has a bandwidth of 2.1GHz, jitter of less than 150 psec, timing repeatability of ±10 psec, and timing accuracy of ±15 psec. System pricing begins at $2 million.

Schlumberger Semiconductor Solutions, 1-800-538-6830, www.idspica.com.

Tool slashes digital-IC test time on existing testers.

Mentor Graphics' TestKompress cuts device-test times by at least 60% without reducing fault coverage, significantly increasing die sizes, requiring new or different tester resources, or necessitating changes in design method. Thus, the product enables the use of existing ATE to test next year's more complex devices on ATE in less time than that required for testing this year's simpler designs. It takes only a day or so to apply TestKompress to a new IC design. The tool uses the suppliers' proprietary embedded-deterministic-test technology, which breaks long scan chains into a larger number of shorter chains but scarcely increases the total number of vectors. Although the interface between the tester and the device under test doesn't change, the scan chains execute in parallel using as few as one-tenth the number of clock pulses as they would typically. TestKompress uses the same script and automatic-test-program-generation files, test-vector formats, and tester interfaces as Mentor's Fast-Scan test-insertion tool, which is necessary for running TestKompress. Price is approximately $1 million.

Mentor Graphics Corp, 1-503-685-7000, www.mentor.com/dft.

PERIPHERALS

LCD monitor packs 9.2 million pixels.

The IBM T221 LCD TFT color monitor is the highest resolution flat-panel monitor. Its 22.2-in. (diagonal) screen displays almost 12 times more data than an XGA monitor. At 204 pixels/in., the T221 squeezes 9.2 million pixels into an 11.8×18.8-in. screen for a resolution of 3840×2400 (QUXGA-wide). IBM's Research Labs developed the monitor's technology using aluminum instead of the traditional molybdenum and tungsten for its active-matrix LCD. Viewing angles are 107° vertical and horizontal with a contrast ratio of 400:1 and a brightness of 235 nits. You can purchase the T221 with a Matrox G200 MMS PCI graphics adapter card, which comes with 32 Mbytes of SGRAM and connects to the monitor with two standard monitor cables. You can buy your own DVI-D graphics adapter because IBM has tested the monitor with the ATI FireGL4 two-headed card, which drives the T221 as two vertical stripes. You can also configure the T221 to be driven from a single-headed card. IBM has added a scaling engine to support lower-resolution display modes. The T221 with the Matrox adapter sells for $18,999. Without the card, the T221 goes for $17,999.

IBM, 1-914-945-3499, www.ibm.com/options.

Tiny drive has lots of space inside.

Toshiba's 5-Gbyte, 1.8-in. MK5002MPL Type II PC Card hard-disk drives fits into a less-than-2.5-in. form factor, measuring 5×54×85.6 mm. The two-headed MK5002MPL has a single platter with an areal density of 21.1 Gbits/in.² The platter spins at 3990 rpm, helping to give the drive an average seek time of 15 msec and a data-transfer rate of 93 to 125 Mbps. The 1.98-oz hard-disk drive has a nonoperating shock rating of 1000g. The MK5002MPL has a retail price of $399. An embedded model (MK5002MAL) is also available for non-PC and emerging markets.

Toshiba America Information Systems (TAIS), 1-949-457-0777, www.harddrives.toshiba.com.

DVD-RAM drive is industry's first.

Panasonic's combination DVD-RAM/R can read or write both rewritable DVD-RAM and write-once DVD-R discs that are compatible with DVD video players and recorders and DVD-ROM drives. The Panasonic DVDBurner uses laser light at 650- and 780-nm wavelengths to write or read 4.7-Gbyte DVD-R discs and 2.6/5.2- to 4.7/9.4-Gbyte DVD-RAM discs. The drive has an ATAPI interface and will play DVD video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, and 24× CD-ROM discs. A consumer version retails for less than $600.

Panasonic Industrial Co, 1-408-945-5600, www.panasonic.com/oemdvd-ram.

First IEEE-1394b cores arrive.

The industry's first 1394b silicon cores from Zayante includes a 1394b PDCb (PHY Digital Core) and ULCb (Universal Link Core), which are available separately, or you can combine them on a single chip for a lower cost approach. The PHY Digital Core supports legacy ports, so that it can interoperate with the older 1394-1995 or 1394a standards as well as beta ports that offer higher speed, longer distances, and overlapped arbitration. The PHY also supports bilingual ports, so that it can communicate with legacy, beta, or other bilingual ports. The ULC supports key features of the 1394b spec, including overlapped and pipelined arbitration. The ULCb works with both 1394b and legacy PHYs. Both cores are available in VHDL or Verilog, and either design language comes with a bus-functional model.

Zayante, 1-831-461-4900, www.zayante.com.

Palm-sized keyboard suits your Palm.

The PDA Pocket Keyboard from Cirque Corp uses Cirque's GlidePoint touch technology, which senses a key touch by detecting changes in capacitance. Placing your finger on a key changes the mutual capacitance between electrodes arranged in a grid beneath the keyboard. A custom ASIC continually measures changes in capacitance in the grid and locates your finger's position. Because the device has no moving keys, it can be completely sealed.

The keyboard weighs 1.9 oz. and measures 0.4 in. deep. Two lithium coin cells provide power and 30 hours of nonstop typing, or about a month of typical use. The keyboard interface accepts adapters to support the Pilot 1000/5000, Palm III, VII, m100, m105, and Handspring Visors. The keyboard retails for $39.95.

Cirque, 1-801-467-1100, www.cirque.com.

Drive outpaces limits and standards.

Maxtor has broken capacity and transfer-rate barriers with its 160-Gbyte DiamondMax D540X UltraATA/133 drive. The drive takes advantage of the new addressing scheme defined in the latest version of the ATA/ATAPI addressing specification. ATA/ATAPI-6 extends the previous limit of 137.4 Gbytes to 144 Pbytes. The DiamondMax D540X also goes beyond the ATA/ATAPI-6 specification's Ultra-ATA/100 standard by operating at 133 Mbytes/sec. The new drive's UltraATA/133 interface is part of Maxtor's proprietary "Fast Drives" specification, which companies such as VIA Technologies, Silicon Integrated Systems, and Silicon Image have licensed. Although UltraATA/133 is not part of the ATA/ATAPI standard, it is backward-compatible with it. Maxtor bundles a Promise Technology ATA controller card with the D540X for a price of $399.95.

Maxtor Corp, 1-408-894-5000, www.maxtor.com.