NEC Electronics announces OpenCAD Version 4.3 ASIC design system expanding support for multiple EDA developers; includes several enhancements for multimedia design.MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 28, 1995--NEC Electronics Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary Wholly Owned Subsidiary A subsidiary whose parent company owns 100% of its common stock. Notes: In other words, the parent company owns the company outright and there are no minority owners. of NEC (NEC Corporation, Tokyo, www.nec.com, www.necus.com) An electronics conglomerate known in the U.S. for its monitors. In Japan, it had the lion's share of the PC market until the late 1990s (see PC 98). NEC was founded in Tokyo in 1899 as Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. Corp., the largest worldwide application-specific integrated circuit (hardware) Application-Specific Integrated Circuit - (ASIC) An integrated circuit designed to perform a particular function by defining the interconnection of a set of basic circuit building blocks drawn from a library provided by the circuit manufacturer. (ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) Pronounced "a-sick." A chip that is custom designed for a specific application rather than a general-purpose chip such as a microprocessor. ) supplier (a), Monday announced OpenCAD Version 4.3, an enhanced version of the OpenCAD Design System that features increased tools support and key ASIC design methodologies. The expanded OpenCAD system features additions that aid in the development of complex multimedia equipment such as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) and set-top boxes The cable TV box that sits on "top" of the TV "set," although it is often located several feet away in an equipment rack. The set-top box descrambles the premium channels and provides a tuner for the higher cable numbers that very old TVs did not support. . The OpenCAD Design System allows designers to mix and match tools from a variety of electronic design automation (EDA (1) (Electronic Design Automation) Using the computer to design, lay out, verify and simulate the performance of electronic circuits on a chip or printed circuit board. ) vendors. To further support this design system, NEC's Version 4.3 includes support for tools from some of the top suppliers such as Analogy, COMPASS, Mentor Graphics Mentor Graphics, Inc (NASDAQ: MENT) is a US-based multinational corporation dealing in electronic design automation (EDA) for electrical engineering and electronics, as of 2004, ranked third in the EDA industry it helped create. and Viewlogic. "With the introduction of Version 4.3, NEC is demonstrating the openness of our design environment by providing our customers with the means to take advantage of multiple EDA tools and libraries," said Lisa Harvey, CAD product marketing manager for NEC Electronics. "The new version adds support for a commercial datapath compiler and the mixed analog/digital simulation capabilities needed for multimedia system-on-a-chip designs." Major Tool Enhancements The four major enhancements to OpenCAD Version 4.3 are: o Support of Analogy's Saber simulator (1) Software that enables the execution of an application written for a different computer environment. Same as emulator. (2) Software that models the interactions of hypothetical or real-world objects or business processes. for mixed-signal verification o Incorporates COMPASS' Passport Datapath Compiler o Addition of Mentor Graphics' Autologic2 synthesis tool o Integration of Viewlogic's Motive static timing analysis tool developed by QuadDesign COMPASS' Passport Datapath Compiler improves density and performance of the datapath thereby shortening the design cycle and decreasing time-to-market. Featuring an extensive library of more than 100 functions, including an array of high-performance elements for DSP (1) (Digital Signal Processor) A special-purpose CPU used for digital signal processing applications (see definition #2 below). It provides ultra-fast instruction sequences, such as shift and add, and multiply and add, which are commonly used in math-intensive and compute-intensive applications, the high-density Datapath Compiler provides an ideal solution for CPU CPU in full central processing unit Principal component of a digital computer, composed of a control unit, an instruction-decoding unit, and an arithmetic-logic unit. datapath and signal processing See DSP. applications, such as those found in audio, video, communications and microcontroller-based systems requiring many multibit arithmetic operations. "Having pioneered datapath compiler technology to provide our customers with silicon for the highest performance and density possible, we are pleased that COMPASS' Datapath Compiler has been selected by NEC and incorporated into its OpenCAD Design System," said Dieter Mezger, COMPASS' president. Additionally, the release of Version 4.3 incorporates Autologic2 allowing customers to take advantage of the popular synthesis developed by Mentor Graphics. With the addition of Autologic2, NEC gives designers a second route for taking advantage of the dramatic design time reduction that synthesis tools provide. With the addition of Analogy's Saber to its library, NEC significantly improves the verification capabilities for mixed signal ASIC designs. Saber works in conjunction with Cadence's Verilog-XL simulation tool to simulate designs that have digital/analog or analog/digital converters. NEC recognizes the growing demand for mixed signal designs often found in multimedia applications, and is one of the first vendors to add specific support for analog simulation. Version 4.3 also gives users access to Motive static timing analysis tool by QuadDesign. Static timing analysis is especially important for high gate count designs, where simulation time can increase significantly. With the addition of Motive, NEC offers designers a third tool for dramatically reducing verification time of high gate count complex designs. About OpenCAD NEC's OpenCAD Design System is a design solution intended for developing submicron ASICs. It provides top-down and timing-driven approaches and supports logic synthesis The conversion of a high-level electronic circuit description into a list of logic gates and their interconnections, called the "netlist." Every logic synthesis program understands some subset of Verilog and VHDL. , simulation, floorplanning, place and route, and physical design verification. Features include an advanced design system for deep submicron ASICs; an open system combining third-party tools under a single design environment; fully supported libraries, including Megafunctions and compiled RAM/ROM blocks. As new EDA concepts enter the market and are embraced by users, NEC Electronics is prepared to quickly incorporate these tools and concepts into its OpenCAD Design System. About NEC NEC Electronics Inc., with headquarters in Mountain View, manufactures and markets an extensive line of electronic products including ASICs, microprocessors and microcontrollers, digital signal processors A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor designed specifically for digital signal processing, generally in real-time computing. Characteristics of typical Digital Signal Processors
The company operates a 676,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Roseville, Calif. NEC Electronics is an affiliate of NEC Corp. (NIPNY), a $43 billion international manufacturer of computer, communications and semiconductor products. -0- NOTE TO EDITORS: NEC Electronics and OpenCAD are registered trademarks or trademarks of NEC Corp. All other registered trademarks or trademarks are property of their respective owners. (a) According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Dataquest CONTACT: Reader Contact: NEC Electronics Inc. Literature Hotline, 800/366-9782 or Media Contacts: Allison Niday, 415/965-6124 or aniday@mcimail.com Lisa Stein, 310/226-3021 or lisa_stein@yr.com |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion