SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- May 21, 2003 -- Sequence Design is releasing the next-generation of PhysicalStudio, with new signal-integrity, power-optimization, and voltage-drop analysis features tuned for 90nm design.

“PhysicalStudio is an excellent tool for hierarchical signal integrity analysis. Sequence's approach is very innovative and unique," said George Serhan, director of VLSI engineering for AMCC. “It reduces the top-level analysis and optimization runtime without sacrificing accuracy, and has been incorporated in the production flow for upcoming switch and router designs.”

Electrical design closure is a tremendous challenge for complex SoC designs. Performance is up dramatically, transistor count is increasing, process is introducing its own nuances, and design times are shrinking.

"Our timing and SI solution is production-proven on more than 100 tapeouts with an extraordinary rate of first-time silicon success," said Vic Kulkarni, Sequence president and CEO. "Given PhysicalStudio's popularity and versatility on designs with more than 200 million transistors, there is no question that we will continue to add features to satisfy market demand for nanometer signal integrity and power-integrity solutions as transistor accounts continue to rise."

New Features Address Top Challenges

PhysicalStudio resolves timing, signal integrity, voltage drop, and power issues concurrently in a single kernel engine. It is fully interoperable with industry-standard routing tools, permitting existing physical design flows to reach fast, predictable design closure in nanometer silicon geometries.

Signal Integrity: Hierarchical signal integrity is key for multi-million gate SoCs to do accurate analysis and optimization at the top-level. PhysicalStudio generates a Periphery Netlist Model (PNM) for blocks with all required information for accurate top-level signal integrity analysis and optimization. It improves the accuracy of analysis by more than 10 percent to 15 percent over traditional block level models with up to 75 percent reduction in data size.

Voltage Drop: Below 130 nanometers, voltage drop can impact delay by 15 percent to 20 percent and coupling glitches by 10 percent to 15 percent, resulting in degraded performance and functional failures. PhysicalStudio's new voltage drop capability performs instantaneous voltage drop analysis, and computes its impact on timing and signal integrity before optimizing the design to compensate for these effects.

Leakage Power: Power is a major concern for all SoC designers. Leakage power, which used to be negligible in 180nm processes, can be as high as 30 percent of the total power consumption in sub-130nm designs. It also needs to be analyzed and optimized in context of timing and signal integrity. PhysicalStudio has a new physical power optimization option that optimizes for dynamic and static (leakage) power while maintaining timing and signal integrity.

PhysicalStudio Features

PhysicalStudio-90’s feature set includes the following:

• Concurrently Optimizes for Timing, Signal Integrity, Power, and Voltage Drop
• Prevents and corrects crosstalk induced delay and glitch violations
• Analyzes impact of instantaneous voltage drop on timing and signal integrity
• On-chip variation, inductance analysis for high-end designs
• Route-topology driven post route correction introduces predictability in the design flow
• Hierarchical solution for multi-million gate SoC flows

Price/Availability

PhysicalStudio-90 will be available in June 2003. Annual license starts at $220,000.

About Sequence

Sequence Design, Inc. enables system-on-chip designers to bring higher-performance and lower-power integrated circuits quickly to fabrication. Sequence's power and signal integrity software give its more than 100 customers the competitive advantage they need to excel in aggressive technology markets, despite demanding complexity and time-to-market issues of nanometer design.

Sequence has worldwide development and field service operations. The company was recently named by Reed Electronics as one of the top 50 companies to watch in the electronics industry. Sequence is privately held. Sequence is a member of Cadence Design Systems' ConnectionsÔ and Mentor Graphics' Open Door ^TM partnership programs. Additional information is available at sequencedesign.com.