Design tool speeds Fujitsu SoC to tape out

An AmmoCore Technology product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Feb 25, 2004

Fujitsu's LSI group has entered into a licensing agreement for AmmoCore Technology Fabrix software, an integrated design flow from netlist to GDSII.

Fujitsu's LSI group has entered into a licensing agreement for AmmoCore Technology Fabrix software, an integrated design flow from netlist to GDSII.

Fujitsu will deploy Fabrix in the physical design implementation of their current and future SoC designs.

The licensing agreement is the direct result of Fabrix exceeding the strict benchmark requirements set by Fujitsu against both in-house and other physical design implementation solutions.

"At Fujitsu's LSI group, we are looking at ways to better accomplish our design and business objectives.

Under a new set of guidelines, we've evaluated new solutions such as Fabrix", said Kazu Kawauchi, General Manager of the Technology Development Division, LSI Group, Fujitsu.

"Since Fabrix leverages multiprocessing and employs an open environment, we're able to maximise our existing infrastructure.

We're impressed with the tool's ease-of-use and that we achieved the results with just one dedicated designer instead of the usual team of four or five engineers.

The timing closure results achieved by Fabrix are far better than we anticipated, and we are particularly pleased with the short turnaround time Fabrix takes on engineering change orders.

We've concluded that AmmoCore's solution offers tremendous improvements in productivity, and faster time to market".

"We are pleased to work with the Fujitsu team and to provide them with the right solution they've been looking for", said Seiji Miwa, President of AmmoCore Japan.

"The AmmoCore team will continue to bring to our customers the most viable design solution for their nanometre designs".

"We have just completed one of our 0.11-micron standard cell designs for a leading edge consumer product using Fabrix.

It took us four weeks from netlist to tape out.

Based on past experiences, it would have taken a few months if we had used our conventional method.

This design was particularly challenging.

It was a low power design with a very complex clock structure, many function modes and it had to be implemented in the smallest die size.

Overall, Fabrix has significantly faster run time, better timing closure results and much better clock tree synthesis", said Kawauchi.

"In addition to faster turnaround time, we were able to achieve a 3% reduction in die-size, which is better than we'd originally anticipated, and we expect to be able to further reduce the die-size in our next design iteration".

"Fujitsu is one of the key customers we worked with early on to validate our technology", said Gary Larson, President and CEO of AmmoCore Technology.

"We are pleased that Fabrix met the highest standards set by Fujitsu in achieving their current and future physical design implementation requirements.

We continue to strive to provide the best physical design solution to enable our customers to attain their design and business objectives".