Siemens enter the IC power analysis market with mPower software

Power integrity software from Siemens is claimed to be the only power integrity analysis software available for analogue, digital and mixed-signal IC designs of any size. mPower helps IC designers dramatically boost quality, enhance reliability and speed time to market through accelerated power integrity analysis cycles, says Siemens Digital Industries Software.

The IC power integrity verification software provides virtually unlimited scalability for analogue, digital, and mixed-signal ICs, enabling comprehensive power, electromigration (EM) and voltage drop (IR) analysis for large IC designs.

mPower software delivers power integrity analysis for all versions of 2D designs, in addition to 2.5/3D IC implementations at any scale. It also integrates into existing design flows easily, adds Siemens. mPower can help IC designers to quickly and thoroughly verify designs to meet power-related design goals.

Analog ICs convert physical, data such as sound, motion and video into digital form, and they are increasingly critical to consumer electronics, autonomous vehicles, IoT designs. Siemens explains how mPower replaces rough static analysis and SPICE simulation of select nets to deliver simulation-based EM/IR analysis on large blocks and chips. Customers using mPower have seen overall runtime improvements compared with their current solution, ranging from two times faster to actually completing first-pass EM/IR analysis of large analogue IP blocks, which was previously impossible, reports Siemens.

Siemens’ digital mPower scalable EM/IR engines also provide analysis for all-digital IC designs. This integrates into existing design flows, provides power analysis functionality and requires low per-machine memory into complete verification of even the largest digital design, says the company.

“Before using mPower, we could not do a single-run full chip EM/IR analysis on our 1000+ core 64-bit RISC-V AI chip,” said Darren Jones, vice president of VLSI at AI computer developer, Esperanto. “Using mPower enables us to run our 24-billion transistor 7nm AI chip on our server farm with fewer resources,“ he adds.

The mPower power integrity joins Siemens‘ electro-physical signoff suite addressing power, performance, and reliability analysis which also includes Calibre PERC reliability software, PowerPro software, HyperLynx software, and the Analog FastSPICE platforms.

“Design companies must run both block and full-chip EM/IR analysis to confirm that the power grid delivers the necessary current to the devices, and that wires will not fail prematurely,” says Joe Sawicki, executive vice president for Siemens’ IC EDA Segment. He believes mPower provides a fast, scalable dynamic analysis option for analogue, digital and mixed-signal layouts of any size, as well as silicon-proven accuracy and fast turns for even the largest digital chips, he says.”

Siemens’ mPower power integrity analysis solution for analog, digital and mixed-signal IC designs is available now.

http://www.sw.siemens.com

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Nanopower primary cell monitors battery health

Designed to be placed in series with a primary battery with minimal associated series voltage drop, the LTC3337 is a nanopower primary (non-rechargeable) cell state of health (SoH) monitor with precision coulomb counter, by Analog Devices.

The patented infinite dynamic range coulomb counter monitors and tallies all accumulated battery discharge (battery voltage, battery impedance and temperature) and stores this data in an internal register which is accessible via an I2C interface. The quiescent current consumption is only 100nA, increasing battery run time.

To accommodate a wide range of primary battery inputs, the peak input current limit is pin selectable from 5.0 to 100mA. This enables the IC to present the battery with a load profile which allows it to deliver its maximum capacity, independent of the actual load. This “battery friendly” operation prolongs the lifetime of the cell.

The LTC3337 has eight primary battery peak input current limits, i.e. 5.0, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50, 75 and 100mA. It is intended for use in primary cell applications that require only occasional power such as applications in remote locations, electronic door locks, or glass break detectors. The monitor may also be used in rechargeable battery cell applications.

The 12-lead 2.0 x 2.0mm LFCSP device is available for sampling and is in full production now.

  Analog Devices has a suite of analogue and mixed signal, power management, radio frequency (RF), and digital and sensor technologies, serving customers worldwide operating in the industrial, communications, automotive and consumer markets.

http://www.analog.com

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Lattice updates mVision stack for 4K video processing

Higher image signal processing (ISP) is delivered via the updated mVision software stack, released by Lattice Semiconductor.

The mVision stack supports 4K video data processing and LPDDR4 memory for popular vision and high speed data interfaces. Developers can implement popular high speed communication and display interfaces to accelerate embedded vision performance with low power consumption for edge applications including machine vision, robotics, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), video surveillance and

The mVision v2.1 has support for the LPDDR4 DRAM memory standard. With up to eight programmable SerDes lanes capable of speeds up to 10.3 Gbits per second, the Nexus FPGAs are claimed to deliver the highest system bandwidth in their class, enabling popular communication and display interfaces such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express, SLVS-EC, CoaXPress, and HBR3 DisplayPort (at up to 8.1 Gbits per second per lane).

Signal bridging and duplication reference designs have also been added. The latest reference designs help developers convert legacy video standards commonly used in industrial applications to the more widely-used MIPI standard. The reference designs include MIPI to parallel conversion, parallel to MIPI conversion, MIPI CSI-2 to LVDS conversion, one-to-N MIPI duplicator and support for the Nexus FPGAs. The ISP support from partner Helion enables high resolution, high frame rate UHD cameras and drones, adds Lattice.

Industry analyst Bob O’Donnell with TECHnalysis Research explains: “LPDDR4 memory provides device designers with a great range of different capacities / densities, speeds, and power requirements that can be matched to specific applications. Because of its low power nature, LPDDR4 memory is particularly well-suited for embedded and machine vision in battery-powered devices or other applications where thermal management is a challenge.”

While embedded and machine vision applications can realise new user experiences in industrial, automotive and consumer markets, supporting them at the edge requires a balance of processing performance and the design’s power consumption and physical constraints, adds Mark Hoopes, director of industrial and automotive segment marketing at Lattice Semiconductor. The mVision stack simplifies and accelerates embedded vision solution development and this version 2.1 leverages the company’s Nexus FPGAs to support high performance interfaces and faster processing at low power, he says.

http://www.latticesemi.com

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R-Car development kit assembles tools for deep learning in vehicle design

Software development and validation for smart camera and automated driving applications in passenger, commercial and off-road vehicles can be accelerated using the R-Car software development kit, says Renesas Electronics. The single, multi-OS software platform is easy for customers to access, learn, use, and install, claims the company.

Deep learning is being used by vehicle manufacturers to enable smart camera applications and automated driving systems. Most however are built on consumer or server applications, which do not operate under the same stringent constraints for functional safety, real-time responsiveness, and low power consumption.

Optimised for use with Renesas’ R-Car V3H and R-Car V3M SoCs, the R-Car SDK is built for rule-based automotive computer vision and AI-based functions. The simulation platform offers both AI and conventional hardware accelerators for accurate simulations in real time. Renesas has already confirmed that it will continue to strengthen this virtual platform. A full suite of development PC-based tools is delivered for both Windows and Linux as well as multiple libraries, including support for deep learning, computer vision, video codecs, and 3D graphics. The SDK supports Linux, multiple ASIL-D-compliant operating systems (e.g., QNX, eMCOS, and Integrity) in a single package.

A version of the e² studio is available for the R-Car V series, focusing on the creation of real-time computer vision applications for ADAS and automated driving. The open-source Eclipse-based development environment includes a full set of debug features and an e² studio GUI (graphics user interface) that allows users to customise and integrate third-party tools. It also supports bus monitoring and debug functionalities for image processing and deep learning subsystems.

Software samples, popular CNN networks, a workshop, and application notes are included for a quick start for development. The SDK is also suitable for benchmarking Renesas products and to select the most appropriate SoC for a target application.

The automatic installer ensures all the software libraries and the development environment can be launched quickly on a development workstation. Applications developed and designed on a PC can be seamlessly ported to embedded development hardware. Renesas’ R-Car partner ecosystem – the R-Car Consortium – will have access to the R-Car SDK.

The R-Car SDK is available now.

https://www.renesas.com

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