Silicon Realization

WHITE PAPER

CONTENTS

Introduction ....................... 1 A Crisis in Productivity, Predictability, and Profitability......................... 2 Disjointed Phases of Design ........................... 4 EDA360: A Holistic Solution ............................. 5 Intent, Abstraction, and Convergence ...................... 6 Mixed-Signal Silicon Realization ......................... 9 Other Silicon Realization Examples.......................... 11 Conclusion ....................... 11

SILIC O N R E A L I Z AT I O N — A N E W APPR O A C H T O FA S T E R , B E T T E R , AND M O R E P R O F I TA B L E S I L I C O N

AUTHORED BY DAVID DESHARNAIS, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT, SILICON REALIZATION

INTRODUCTION

While Silicon Realization encompasses most of what the industry has defined as traditional “EDA,” it goes far beyond this definition by outlining a deterministic path to silicon that is broader, more efficient, and more effective than today’s point-tool based approaches. In its fullness, Silicon Realization addresses the business and technology challenges of complex silicon development, and enables design, implementation, and verification teams to attain higher levels of productivity, predictability, and profitability. Part of the EDA360 vision1 for application-driven design, Silicon Realization covers the entire scope of tools and capabilities required to get a design into silicon—be it an analog or digital intellectual property (IP) block, an IP subsystem for a system on chip (SoC), or a completed IC or SoC— including the package in which the silicon sits. While all aspects of design, verification, and implementation are part of Silicon Realization, its primary focus is on providing complete, end-toend deterministic flows to solve real customer challenges. These challenges include mixed-signal design; low-power design; large-scale, complex, high-performance advanced node design (also known as giga-gates/GHz design); verification; IC/system-in-package (SiP)...