MUNICH – Zuken and SiSoft today announced plans to integrate their software tools for high-speed design and multi-gigabit applications.

Under the agreement, SiSoft’s Quantum Channel Designer and Quantum-SI signal integrity software will be integrated with Zuken’s CR-8000 tool suite, providing a combined design and verification flow.

Terms weren't announced, and future plans were intimated but not specified. 

"We see high-speed interfaces, such as PCI-Express, IEEE802.3, DDR3 and DDR4, continue to expand in applications across industries such as smartphone/tablet, automotive, defense/mil-aero, telecom, computer, and storage. At the same time, design teams are struggling to meet stringent timelines using disconnected tools. Our collaboration with SiSoft will help design teams manage their work concurrently and intelligently,” said Humair Mandavia, executive director of the SOZO Center, Zuken’s R&D facility in Silicon Valley.

“SiSoft’s IBIS-AMI models provide plug-and-play simulation of serializer/deserializer (SerDes) behavior using commercial EDA tools,” said Barry Katz, president and CTO of SiSoft. “They include conventional analog and algorithmic (compiled code) components which support both statistical and time-domain channel simulations running orders of magnitude faster than traditional SPICE models (up to 1 million bits/minute). This allows designers to explore large design spaces during pre-route analysis and perform comprehensive post-route validation,” he said.

The companies were spurred by what they saw as increased need for active equalization circuitry in multi-gigabit serial links, and the growing utilization of DDR2, DDR3 and DDR4 parallel bus technology, which are driving integrated timing, signal integrity and crosstalk analysis. The Zuken/SiSoft combination provides high-speed design closure for system, FPGA and ASIC designs. SiSoft’s tools support the mixed use of transistor-level HSPICE, IBIS and IBIS-AMI models for signal integrity simulations.

Quantum Channel Designer and Quantum-SI tools will exchange accurate geometry and electrical information with both CR-8000 Design Force and CR-5000 Board Designer. The Zuken/SiSoft flow supports analysis and verification to help reduce input errors and eliminate geometric approximations. With this combination, the user will be able to analyze specific sections of the board, specific nets, or the entire design.

For more information see www.zuken.com/cr-8000