feature article
Subscribe Now

Synopsys and SPICE Go Native

An Environment of Their Own

Want to feel old?

Wait… hello? You still there?

OK, whew… I thought you’d already answered, “No” and moved on to something else. Guess I should vet my questions more carefully.

Here’s the deal: HSPICE is 35 years old. I know… I probably should have given you time to pour a drink. I mean… I was running SPICE before there was an HSPICE. (Barely…)

(Takes a few gentle rocks in the chair…)

That sets the backdrop for a recent Synopsys announcement. It has to do with analog and mixed-signal design and verification. See, you can do analog design using Synopsys tools. And you can simulate those designs using Synopsys tools.

The question seems to come down to this: how easy is it to analyze and debug the results of the simulation? And I guess that’s where things came up… well, a bit short of what Synopsys wanted.

Option 1 involved a command-line interface. Now… we all know that any badass designer will eschew pretty GUIs as toys, right? If you really know what you’re doing, you’re going to run everything from a dark, inscrutable window, preferably using commands that are as opaque and obscure as possible. Am I right? Your ability to function that way proves that you’re a boss.

Well, except when things get big and complex and you’re competing with companies that are leveraging rather more modern analysis techniques like data mining. I mean, yeah, you can go through 50 pages of printout and instantly spot the problems with the best of them, but… you gotta admit it’s getting harder.

Which means reluctantly considering a GUI. That’s been Option 2. Only… Synopsys didn’t have a GUI to offer. What they could do was integrate with Cadence’s environment.

Yeah, that almost sounds like Wells Fargo wanting to automate their loan process and using Bank of America’s forms cuz they’re already there. Except that those forms have a BofA logo on them… and they don’t necessarily ask for all the info that WF wants…

In the same way, the Cadence integration has limited capabilities – fine for basic stuff, but not so great for sophisticated sleuthing. And any customization requires a proprietary language, SKIL. In order to give designers the features they wanted (and presumably to take back control of their destiny), Synopsys has released their Simulation Analysis Environment (SAE). (Note that this isn’t necessarily a condemnation of Cadence’s features – I honestly haven’t lined them up to compare, but the idea is that the tool is native to Cadence, so they can do more with it than Synopsys can with an integration.)

So Synopsys has assembled their own native environment, and they now own their capabilities. The scope of an environment like this includes, first off, simple access to and control of the simulators – configuration, job management, etc. You know the drill.

In addition, it allows more sophisticated types of analysis, like parameter sweeps, corner evaluation, the use of multiple testbenches, and Monte Carlo simulation. Then there’s data management – making it easier to find a few issues in a sea of non-issues and allowing data mining. Finally, there’s visualization: waveforms dominate here for actual signal analysis, but there is also a need for things like managing the results of multiple simulations to track progress and see what still needs fixing.

In the past, some of these capabilities simply weren’t available. In other cases, like waveform viewing, they had to rely on someone else’s viewer. And not just anyone else’s: a competitor’s. Oh, the shame of it all…

We started out here talking about SPICE, and, indeed, this environment provides entrée into HSPICE, FineSim SPICE, and CustomSim (FastSPICE). But it also gets you into their AMS version of VCS so that the digital and analog parts can be verified together. Because the environment is above all of these simulators, any settings you put in place remain even if you switch simulators.

Synopsys_SAE_flow.png 

In addition, as you work, it’s busy tracking all your moves. Yeah, I know… put that way, it might sound like Synopsys is taking a page out of Google’s “all your data are belong to us” philosophy, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s recording a script so that you can replay the session in a batch mode without redoing everything by hand. (Probably a few palpitations at Synopsys during this paragraph… No, Synopsys is not snooping your design data.)

When viewing what’s going on during a run, results become visible in real time as tasks finish up, along with color-coding to indicate pass or fail (the usual red/green report thing). And as you are tracking your progress – and trying to decide whether changes to your design have moved you in the right or wrong direction – you can compare results from different runs.

You can also gather statistics and plot multiple parameters as you try to center your design to stay within spec despite variations and environmental conditions. And it wouldn’t be a modern tool if it didn’t let you generate and share reports on the web.

This is being added to their 2016.3 release; there’s no separate charge for it. Just part of the package.

Now, for you (OK… we…) oldsters, I know you value the fact that you can tell your grandkids what it used to be like to run SPICE in the old days. Like, way back when you would buy time from a mainframe service (which is nothing like cloud-based simulation… no, nothing at all). Heck, I still remember being a junior nothing, having been told to run simulations to optimize a circuit, and then seeing my boss’s face when the mainframe usage bill came in. I don’t have grandkids yet, but when I do, I know they’re going to be asking for that story over and over.

For the rest of you whippersnappers, you have no idea how good you got it these days…

Happy Birthday HSPICE. It’s been a good long run. (And still running…)

 

More info:

Synopsys SAE

 

One thought on “Synopsys and SPICE Go Native”

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Jun 6, 2023
Learn about our PVT Monitor IP, a key component of our SLM chip monitoring solutions, which successfully taped out on TSMC's N5 and N3E processes. The post Synopsys Tapes Out SLM PVT Monitor IP on TSMC N5 and N3E Processes appeared first on New Horizons for Chip Design....
Jun 6, 2023
At this year's DesignCon, Meta held a session on '˜PowerTree-Based PDN Analysis, Correlation, and Signoff for MR/AR Systems.' Presented by Kundan Chand and Grace Yu from Meta, they talked about power integrity (PI) analysis using Sigrity Aurora and Power Integrity tools such...
Jun 2, 2023
I just heard something that really gave me pause for thought -- the fact that everyone experiences two forms of death (given a choice, I'd rather not experience even one)....

featured video

Efficient Top-Level Interconnect Planning and Implementation with Synopsys IC Compiler II

Sponsored by Synopsys

This video shows how IC Compiler II and Fusion Compiler enable intelligent planning and implementation of complex interconnects through innovative Topological Interconnect Planning technology - accelerating schedules and achieving highest QoR.

Learn More

featured paper

EC Solver Tech Brief

Sponsored by Cadence Design Systems

The Cadence® Celsius™ EC Solver supports electronics system designers in managing the most challenging thermal/electronic cooling problems quickly and accurately. By utilizing a powerful computational engine and meshing technology, designers can model and analyze the fluid flow and heat transfer of even the most complex electronic system and ensure the electronic cooling system is reliable.

Click to read more

featured chalk talk

Series Five Product Introduction
Size and weight are critical design considerations when it comes to military and aerospace applications. One way to minimize weight and size in these kinds of designs is to take a closer look at your choice of connectors. In this episode of Chalk Talk, Amelia Dalton chats with Anthony Annunziata from Amphenol Aerospace about the series five next generation connectors from Amphenol Aerospace. They investigate the size and weight advantages that these connectors bring to military and aerospace applications and how you can get started using the series five in your next design.
Nov 3, 2022
26,632 views