Micronas Standardizes on Synopsys' Design and Verification Solutions for Automotive Designs

The automotive industry is characterized by increasingly complex electronic systems, shorter innovation cycles and a steady rise in safety and quality requirements. In response, Micronas pursues a forward-looking quality policy in which both suppliers and customers are actively integrated into the zero ppm strategy, said Dirk Behrens, vice president Automotive at Micronas. Our new partnership with Synopsys gives us an improved interoperability between the different tools and will enable us to influence future tool versions, thus giving us better, earlier access to advanced technologies in that area.

To enable a smooth and quick migration from their previous flow, Synopsys worked closely with Micronas to deliver a customized front-to-back analog and digital design flow. The collaboration included the following:

•Development of custom interoperable process design kits (iPDKs);
•IC Validator and StarRC design rule decks for in-house proprietary process technology;
•Integration of Micronas' in-house SPICE simulator into the Galaxy Custom Designer schematic environment;
•Migration of design data from legacy tool flows to the Synopsys solution.

As a result of this close collaboration, Micronas has fully migrated to Synopsys' solution and has used it to tape out two new designs, successfully making use of the unified custom and digital design solution in the Galaxy™ Implementation Platform, as well as the VCS functional verification solution in the Discovery™ Verification Platform.

Increasingly, designers are adopting the full Synopsys solution for custom and digital designs to achieve their design goals in a timely manner, said Paul Lo, general manager and senior vice president of the Analog/Mixed-Signal Group at Synopsys. Through our collaboration, we've helped Micronas take advantage of the unified custom and digital design and verification solutions in the Galaxy Implementation and Discovery Verification platforms.