Byusing HDs graybox mode designers gain additional capacity improvement

As the semiconductor companies continue to push the capacity and performancelimitations of EDA tools, Apaches ability to deliver products that meet theirdemands provides key competitive advantage. Apaches continuous investment inR&D has enabled the company to deliver re-architected next generation dynamicpower solutions every three years, starting with the introduction of RedHawk-SDin 2002, RedHawk-EV in 2005, and RedHawk-NX in 2008. "RedHawk technology roadmap is able to meet our design size and complexity needsfor power noise analysis from one generation of our products to the next," saidJean Boufarhat, vice president of engineering, from Graphics Products Group atAMD. "Specifically, RedHawk-NX allowed us to perform dynamic power noiseanalysis on our largest design with more than 750 million nodes. The ability toverify the entire chip including memories is critical to our design success." Hierarchical Dynamic (HD)RedHawk-NX supports the industrys first hierarchical dynamic technologyallowing designers to adopt a bottom-up analysis methodology with various levelsof abstraction.

When using HDs white-box mode, the designers are able tomaintain the same level of sign-off accuracy as RedHawks flattened analysis. Byusing HDs gray-box mode, designers gain additional capacity improvement. Historically, hierarchical solutions were only available for static analysiswhere time-point-by-time-point waveform accuracy of the block-level simulationis not considered. With HD technology, IP providers can deliver encrypted Apachedynamic power views for use in full-chip sign-off analysis. HD also effectivelysupports industrys hierarchical design methodologies across multiple designsites. Mesh Pattern Recognition (MPR)RedHawk-NXs automatic mesh pattern recognition algorithm leverages regularityin the power/ground mesh structures enabling data reuse for effective reductionof physical memory needs. MPR handles designs with complex RDL, densemulti-layered P/G grid, and high memory content.

MPR technology has beendemonstrated to reduce RedHawk database memory footprint by 2-3X compared withexisting techniques. Multi-core Architecture (MC)RedHawk-NX is re-architected to maximize the capacity and performance advantagesof the multi-core processing systems. The MC solver can be scaled to handledesigns with up to billion nodes in existing computing environment. With the MCtechnology, designers will benefit from 2-3X runtime improvements in theirdynamic transient simulation, as well as MTCMOS rush current analysis. "SoC power integrity and power induced system noise are clearly the topchallenges for the semiconductor industry," said Andrew Yang, CEO of Apache."Power and noise is Apaches focus and we continuously invest in R&D to maintainour best-in-class and first-in-class leadership position. This enables us toaddress customers growing design challenges and cost reduction needs." Pricing and AvailabilityRedHawk-NX will be available in Q1, 2009 as a no cost upgrade to all activeRedHawk-EV customers. Apache's innovative platformsaddress the unique power and noise challenges associated with specific designdomains such as SoC (digital, analog) and System (IC package, SiP, PCB), whileproviding a co-analysis environment that integrates the SoC and System worlds.From early-stage to sign-off, Apaches products are adopted by 80 of the topIDM, fabless semiconductor, and foundries for cost reduction, risk mitigation,and time-to-market improvements.