industry news
Subscribe Now

Cadence Significantly Accelerates Chip Design With New Virtuoso Layout Suite for Electrically Aware Design

SAN JOSE, CA–(Marketwired – July 10, 2013) – Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ: CDNS)

HIGHLIGHTS:Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ: CDNS)

  • Cadence Virtuoso Layout Suite Electrically Aware Design (EAD) can save engineers days to weeks of design time by enabling real-time parasitic extraction during layout.
  • New product and methodology reduces need for multiple design iterations and “over design,” translating to better performance and less area.

Offering increased design team productivity and circuit performance for custom ICs, Cadence Design Systems (NASDAQ: CDNS) today introduced a groundbreaking approach to custom design with its Virtuoso® Layout Suite for Electrically Aware Design (EAD). This unique in-design electrical verification capability enables design teams to monitor electrical issues while a layout is created, rather than wait until the layout is completed before verifying that it meets the original design intent. Virtuoso Layout Suite EAD allows engineers to reduce their circuit design cycle by up to 30 percent while optimizing chip size and performance.

Using this innovative new technology, engineers can electrically analyze, simulate and verify interconnect decisions in real time, resulting in layout that is electrically correct-by-construction. This real-time visibility lets engineers reduce conservative design practices — or “over-design” — that can negatively impact a chip’s performance and area.

Virtuoso Layout Suite EAD delivers:

  • The ability to capture currents and voltages from simulations run in the Virtuoso Analog Design Environment, and pass that electrical information forward into the layout environment
  • Management capabilities that enable circuit designers to set electrical constraints (like matched capacitance and resistance) and allow layout designers to observe in real-time if these constraints are being met
  • A built-in interconnect parasitic extraction engine that rapidly evaluates layout as it is created and provides an in-design electrical view for real-time analysis and optimization
  • Electromigration (EM) analysis that alerts layout engineers to any EM issues that are being created as the layout is drawn
  • Partial layout re-simulation that helps prevent errors from getting buried deep in a packed layout, thus minimizing re-spins and reducing the need to “over-design”
  • A greater level of collaboration between circuit designers and layout designers to achieve electrically correct-by-construction layout, regardless of where the team members are located

“Virtuoso Layout Suite EAD represents a big leap forward for automating custom design, enabling layout designers and circuit designers to work together more efficiently and effectively through greater real-time visibility into electrical issues,” said Tom Beckley, senior vice president, research and development, Silicon Realization Group at Cadence. “EAD underscores our commitment to keep evolving our Virtuoso platform to ensure it meets the needs of the countless engineers who rely on it to tackle complex design challenges.”

For more information about the Virtuoso Layout Suite EAD, please click here.

About Cadence

Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today’s integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software, hardware, IP, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available at www.cadence.com.

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Apr 2, 2026
Build, code, and explore with your own AI-powered Mars rover kit, inspired by NASA's Perseverance mission....

featured paper

Quickly and accurately identify inter-domain leakage issues in IC designs

Sponsored by Siemens Digital Industries Software

Power domain leakage is a major IC reliability issue, often missed by traditional tools. This white paper describes challenges of identifying leakage, types of false results, and presents Siemens EDA’s Insight Analyzer. The tool proactively finds true leakage paths, filters out false positives, and helps circuit designers quickly fix risks—enabling more robust, reliable chip designs. With detailed, context-aware analysis, designers save time and improve silicon quality.

Click to read more

featured chalk talk

Nexperia GaN Power Proliferating in All Things Motor Control/Drive
Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and Nexperia
In this episode of Chalk Talk, Art Gonsky from Nexperia and Amelia Dalton discuss the biggest challenges of electric motors and controllers and how GaN power solutions can help solve these issues. They  also investigate how silicon, silicon carbide and GaN power solutions compare and how Nexperia and NXP technologies can get your next motor control design up and running in no time!     
Mar 25, 2026
25,690 views