editor's blog
Subscribe Now

2 Spicey?

Tanner just announced the integration of Berkeley Design Automation’s (BDA’s) FastSPICE into their flow. You may remember Tanner as a company that does things their own way, offering a full suite of tools for custom design. Including their own T-SPICE.

And their own T-SPICE doesn’t seem to be going away; it’s not being replaced by FastSPICE. I got a chance to talk about that with Vice President of Marketing and Business Strategy John Zuk to understand better what the strategy is for maintaining both. And, actually, it doesn’t hinge on anything technical or esoteric; it’s really much simpler than that: price/performance.

It’s hard to do SPICE (or any tool) to sign-off accuracy. It’s harder yet to get people to believe you have the accuracy for sign off. And it’s horrendously hard to keep up with the most aggressive nodes underway. (Yeah, much analog stays far back from those nodes, but custom digital chips like FPGAs tend to push as far as they can go.)

So it’s easy to imagine looking down the path of your own home-grown SPICE and think, “Wow, this isn’t gonna be easy.” Meanwhile, as they mulled their options, their customers even suggested collaboration with BDA. So they got in touch, aligned their release schedules, and worked out an integration.

At which point, you might easily think, OK, end of the road for T-SPICE. Except for one thing: Mr. Zuk says that they have plenty of customers that are happy with T-SPICE – and, in particular, its price, since it sells more modestly than does FastSPICE.

So they’re keeping them both. While they won’t be delving into the deepest dimensions with T-SPICE, they will still continue developing models and improving performance, so he says that it’s not a dead-end product. But for customers needing more accuracy and technology reach, they can get it with FastSPICE.

You can find more information on the announcement in their release

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Dec 2, 2024
The Wi-SUN Smart City Living Lab Challenge names the winners with Farmer's Voice, a voice command app for agriculture use, taking first place. Read the blog....
Dec 3, 2024
I've just seen something that is totally droolworthy, which may explain why I'm currently drooling all over my keyboard....

Libby's Lab

Libby's Lab - Scopes Out Silicon Labs EFRxG22 Development Tools

Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and Silicon Labs

Join Libby in this episode of “Libby’s Lab” as she explores the Silicon Labs EFR32xG22 Development Tools, available at Mouser.com! These versatile tools are perfect for engineers developing wireless applications with Bluetooth®, Zigbee®, or proprietary protocols. Designed for energy efficiency and ease of use, the starter kit simplifies development for IoT, smart home, and industrial devices. From low-power IoT projects to fitness trackers and medical devices, these tools offer multi-protocol support, reliable performance, and hassle-free setup. Watch as Libby and Demo dive into how these tools can bring wireless projects to life. Keep your circuits charged and your ideas sparking!

Click here for more information about Silicon Labs xG22 Development Tools

featured paper

Quantized Neural Networks for FPGA Inference

Sponsored by Intel

Implementing a low precision network in FPGA hardware for efficient inferencing provides numerous advantages when it comes to meeting demanding specifications. The increased flexibility allows optimization of throughput, overall power consumption, resource usage, device size, TOPs/watt, and deterministic latency. These are important benefits where scaling and efficiency are inherent requirements of the application.

Click to read more

featured chalk talk

ROHM’s 3rd Gen 650V IGBT for a Wide range of Applications: RGW and RGWS Series
In this episode of Chalk Talk, Amelia Dalton and Heath Ogurisu from ROHM Semiconductor investigate the benefits of ROHM Semiconductor’s RGW and RGWS Series of IGBTs. They explore how the soft switching of these hybrid IGBTs contribute to energy savings and power generation efficiency and why these IGBTs provide a well-balanced solution for switching and cost.
Jun 5, 2024
33,763 views