Mentor platform chosen for analogue & RF circuit verification

Ramin Poorfard, Vice President of Technology, Silicon Labs, commented: “We have stringent circuit verification and noise analysis requirements for our low-power custom analogue, RF and mixed-signal circuits for our IoT SoCs. We selected the AFS Platform from Mentor Graphics because they are able to fully address our requirements for circuit verification accuracy, performance, simulation time and capacity. Mentor has become a valuable EDA partner and we continue to work closely with them as we further advance the state-of-the-art in complex, ultra-low-power mixed-signal ICs.”

“AFS device noise analysis delivers silicon-accurate noise analysis for our low-power, high-performance PLL and data converter circuits. AFS consistently delivers nanometre SPICE accuracy with superior performance that fully meets our requirements. This capability has allowed us to run more Monte Carlo simulations in a reasonable amount of time, providing us a higher degree of confidence in our designs,” said Ravi Kummaraguntla, IoT Design Manager, Silicon Labs.

The AFS Platform provides the world’s fastest circuit verification for nanometre analogue, RF, mixed-signal, memory and custom digital circuits. Foundry certified to 7nm, the AFS Platform delivers nanometre SPICE accuracy 5-10 times faster than traditional SPICE and 2-6 times faster than parallel SPICE simulators. For large circuits the AFS Platform delivers greater than 20m element capacity and the fastest mixed-signal simulation. For memory and other array-based circuits, AFS Mega delivers silicon-accurate simulation with greater than 100m element capacity. For silicon-accurate characterisation it includes the industry’s only comprehensive full-spectrum device noise analysis and a high-productivity Analog Characterization Environment product - both of which deliver 5-10 times speedup over alternative approaches.

"The close cooperation we have had with Silicon Labs over the past decade has enabled us to develop industry-leading capabilities in the Analog FastSPICE Platform," added Ravi Subramanian, General Manager, Analog Mixed Signal products, Deep Sub Micron division, Mentor Graphics. "We are pleased to see that Silicon Labs has selected the AFS Platform for its IoT custom analogue, RF and mixed-signal verification flows. This selection further validates the value Mentor Graphics offers as an essential partner to leaders in the semiconductor industry.”