Nationz Technologies Achieves First-Pass Silicon Success With CustomSim Mixed-Signal and VCS Functional Verification Solutions on Multi-GHz RF Transceiver

The combination of CustomSim and VCS allowed us to shorten our design cycle while delivering silicon-accurate results, said Meiyun Li, chief technology officer of Nationz Technologies, Inc. The CustomSim mixed-signal solution delivered better silicon correlation, performance and ease-of-use over other competitive tools, which was critical in enabling us to achieve first silicon success on a recent RF SoC design.

To adequately verify complex mixed-signal designs, a solution must have the performance and accuracy needed to efficiently simulate digitally-controlled analog functions such as RF transceivers, phase-locked-loops (PLLs) and Sigma Delta Converters. CustomSim addresses these challenges with best-in-class NanoSim®, HSIM® and XA simulation technologies featuring added multicore processing capabilities for high-capacity, high-performance circuit simulation. For full-chip verification, the CustomSim solution is tightly coupled to the VCS functional verification solution through direct kernel integration. The combined solution provides a unified analog/mixed-signal (AMS) verification environment that simplifies usability through a common set of inputs, outputs and device models.

The combined CustomSim and VCS mixed-signal solution has been widely deployed at major IC companies to verify complex mixed-signal SoC designs, said Farhad Hayat, senior director of analog/mixed-signal marketing at Synopsys. As analog content of SoCs continues to rise, more companies like Nationz Technologies are adopting Synopsys' solutions to address their toughest mixed-signal verification tasks.