Date: 03/05/2011

Low Power Reference Flow 3.0 from Hua Hong NEC and Synopsys

Shanghai Hua Hong NEC Electronics Company Ltd. and Synopsys, Inc. have announced the availability of the 130-nanomter (nm) reference flow, version 3.0. The reference flow adds the Synopsys Eclypse Low Power Solution to previous reference flows available to designers. Designers have immediate access to an optimized path to Hua Hong NEC silicon at 130-nm.

The reference design flow was validated using Hua Hong NEC's in-house-developed cell library, SRAM, and IO Library for 130-nm. A full low power cell library from Hua Hong NEC is ready for customer use. The test chip used to validate the reference flow features a multi-supply and multi-voltage design.

Reference Flow 3.0 includes implementation and verification capabilities of Synopsys' Galaxy Implementation and Discovery Verification platforms to enable engineers to deploy advanced low power techniques. Capabilities added for reference flow 3.0 include Synopsys' Formality solution for low power equivalence checking, MVRC for static rule checking, Power Compiler tool for power optimization, and VCS with MVSIM for multi-voltage simulation.

"Hua Hong NEC's 130-nanometer non-volatile memory process requires a flow that addresses leakage power to meet our customers' need for power efficient designs," said Wang Nan, design service director at Hua Hong NEC. "We worked closely with Synopsys to deliver a solution that enables mutual customers to leverage Synopsys's strength in low power design and our manufacturing expertise.

"Synopsys works closely with our semiconductor foundry partners to enable our mutual customers to accelerate their designs into manufacturing," said Rich Goldman, vice president of corporate marketing and strategic alliances at Synopsys. "Our collaboration with Hua Hong NEC gives engineering teams a proven reference flow to advance their system-on-chip designs targeting Hua Hong NEC's 130-nanometer process technology, while leveraging Synopsys' low power implementation and verification technologies."