Motorola, Texas Instruments Provide New ASIC Libraries for Synopsys'
DesignPower

LIBRARIES ALLOW ASIC DESIGNERS TO ADDRESS COMPLETE MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF
POWER CONSUMPTION PROBLEMS EARLY IN THE DESIGN CYCLE

October 9, 1995 -- Synopsys, Inc. (NASDAQ: SNPS) today announced that
Motorola Semiconductor Product Sector (Schaumburg, IL) and Texas
Instruments, Inc. (Dallas, TX) are supporting DesignPower with new ASIC
libraries that facilitate high-level power analysis by incorporating power
parameters. These libraries, used in conjunction with DesignPower, help
ASIC designers locate power consumption problems and measure effectiveness
of design trade-offs in resolving these problems.

"Our customers, particularly in the wireless and telecom markets, are
reporting that power management has become as critical to their product
development, as are performance and area considerations," said Aart de
Geus, president and CEO of Synopsys. "Power is a strategic initiative
throughout Synopsys. Synopsys' leadership in the development of power
management tools for high-level design is an integral part of our approach
to synthesis solutions that address power, performance, area and test."

"Motorola and Texas Instruments, both leading suppliers to power- sensitive
design markets, are working with Synopsys to deliver a low-power
solution," added Francine Ferguson, senior product marketing manager for
Synopsys' low-power tools. "These libraries are a significant endorsement
for a high-level power analysis methodology, and enhance DesignPower's
ability to help designers minimize IC power issues early in the design
process -- long before physical layout. This will result in shorter design
cycles and reduce the risk of incurring more expensive packaging,
additional cooling devices and design respins."

DesignPower provides two approaches to power analysis -- probabilistic and
simulation-based -- that provide varying degrees of accuracy for different
phases of the design cycle. Both approaches use the complete power model
-- switching, internal and leakage power -- to do detailed analysis. With
DesignPower, designers can explore both register-transfer-level (RTL) and
gate-level trade-offs for power consumption within the context of a
high-level design methodology.

Modeling of internal power parameters is important for accurate analysis of
power dissipation. Internal power parameters relate to power dissipated
internal to the library cell and include both short-circuit power and
switching power due to internal nets toggling. Leakage parameters relate
to dissipation in a "sleep" mode. Leakage power is a very small percent of
dynamic power dissipation, but is significant for wireless applications to
maximize battery life.

Existing libraries from Motorola and Texas Instruments already support
switching power analysis, which is the major component of power in CMOS
designs. These new libraries will incorporate internal and leakage power
which represent up to 30 percent of power dissipation in a CMOS design,
enough to be a necessary factor in chip packaging decisions. Several
additional vendors are expected to follow suit and incorporate the
complete power model into their libraries in the first half of 1996.

MEETING OUR CUSTOMER'S LOW-POWER NEEDS

"Half micron technology elevates typical performance and integration levels
to where designers using power management tools will achieve significant
advantages in cost and circuit development time," said Debbie Drysdale,
Motorola's Director of Operations for Advanced Products in the ASIC
Division. "Early power analysis, as provided with DesignPower, allows
designers to consider power during the RTL design phase, enabling a much
more sophisticated approach to low power design."

"In order to more accurately calculate power dissipation, it is necessary
to account for internal cell power dissipation and net power dissipation,"
said Hasan Khan, ASIC Client CAD Development and Support Manager for Texas
Instruments ASIC Department. "DesignPower efficiently supports this model.
By coupling its algorithm with library modelling, DesignPower enables the
designer to analyze and make design changes for power early in the design
cycle when these changes are less costly. The work we've done to support
DesignPower is a prime example of the very close relationship TI and
Synopsys have developed to address our mutual customers' design
challenges."

DesignPower is integrated into the Synopsys synthesis environment and can
be used in conjunction with Synopsys' VSS Simulator and other VHDL,
Verilog(R) and gate-level simulators. Users can combine these tools to
form a completely integrated power management design flow that
dramatically reduces the risk of design iterations and increased packaging
cost caused by power consumption problems.

AVAILABILITY

Support for Motorola's M5C Series DesignPower library will be incorporated
into the next Open Architecture CAD System (OACS) release in October.
Texas Instruments' first technology that will support DesignPower will be
available as part of the next TI Design Support Software (TIDSS)
incremental release scheduled for November 1995.

For additional information contact your local sales office or call
800-388-9125
 
 =========================================================
 From the 'New Product News' Electronic News Service on...
 AOL (Keyword = New Products) and Delphi (GO COMP PROD)
 =========================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the
 company/author mentioned. For additional details, please
 contact them directly at the address/phone# indicated.
 Trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
 =========================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  USA
 Email: rbakerpc@delphi.com  -or- RBakerPC (on AOL/Delphi)
 =========================================================
