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Tools Deliver Full-SPICE Accuracy at 5X-10X Performance Without Tuning

SANTA CLARA, Calif. —July 24, 2006—  Berkeley Design Automation Inc., provider of Precision Circuit Analysis™ technology for advanced analog and RF integrated circuits, today launched two products that establish a new category of advanced circuit verification tools. Analog FastSPICE and RF FastSPICE deliver full-SPICE accuracy at 5X to 10X performance with no block-level tuning. Shattering the limits of traditional SPICE, RF, and digital FastSPICE simulators, Analog FastSPICE and RF FastSPICE provide up to an order-of-magnitude more verification bandwidth for GHz circuits in nanometer-scale silicon technology. These products are silicon proven in wireless, networking, storage, and high-speed I/O applications.

Analog/RF circuits are both the biggest differentiator and the most difficult design challenge in today’s integrated circuits (ICs). Running at GHz frequencies and implemented in nanometer-scale CMOS silicon processes, these circuits introduce a new class of verification problems that SPICE, RF, and digital FastSPICE simulators simply cannot address. Existing tools are too slow, not accurate enough, or require days or weeks of experimentation with options. The solution is a new category of tools called precision FastSPICE – tools that provide transient and periodic analysis with full accuracy, 5X to 10X performance, and require no tuning.

Berkeley Design Automation’s Analog FastSPICE and RF FastSPICE are the industry’s first precision FastSPICE products. Combining innovative applied mathematics with advanced numerical optimization techniques, the company developed the underlying Precision Circuit Analysis technology from the bottom up, never compromising accuracy, and verifying it against silicon every step of the way. Unparalleled accuracy and performance make Analog FastSPICE and RF FastSPICE ideal for the most difficult verification tasks including large circuits that cannot converge, post-layout circuits, and extensive corner/configuration analysis.

Analog FastSPICE: Industry’s First Multi-Rate Transient Engine
Analog FastSPICE utilizes the industry’s first multi-rate transient engine to deliver extremely robust DC convergence, full-SPICE accuracy, and 5X to 10X performance – all without block-level tuning. The target application is any transient simulation that requires full-SPICE accuracy and would take from multiple hours to multiple weeks to run in traditional SPICE simulators. Analog FastSPICE is proven on wide range of production circuits including full 802.11 a/b/g transceivers, sigma-delta ADCs, DTV tuner automatic gain control with bandgap and bias, high-speed I/O, and post-layout multi-GHz PLLs.

"Traditional SPICE simulators are too slow for accurate functional verification of the large analog circuits in our high speed interface IC designs," said Jun-ichi Okamura, Director Business Unit I, THine Electronics, Inc. "We’ve tried FastSPICE tools, but it is a big challenge to find acceptable high accuracy and performance settings when running these tools. BDA’s Analog FastSPICE provides us with both the accuracy of SPICE and the performance of FastSPICE, without the need to experiment with accuracy options."

RF FastSPICE: Unified Time/Frequency Analysis
RF FastSPICE adds unified time/frequency, harmonic balance, and stochastic non-linear engines to the Analog FastSPICE functionality. The result is extremely robust periodic convergence, full-SPICE accuracy, 5X to 10X performance, and VCO phase noise proven within 1db relative silicon accuracy. Target applications for RF FastSPICE include any complex RF blocks (for example, multi-frequency, highly nonlinear blocks) that cannot converge in traditional RF simulators, or have greater than one hour runtime. RF FastSPICE is proven on wide range of production circuits including 65nm PLLs, 90nm LC-tank and ring oscillator VCOs (including bandgap and bias), 130nm low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) + mixer circuits, power amplifiers, and crystal oscillators.

"At Fujitsu, our innovative product engineering teams design some of the world's most complex high-speed analog/RF and mixed-signal circuits," said Shoji Ichino, General Manager, Technology Development Division, Electronic Devices Business Group, Fujitsu Limited. "Many of these circuits are highly nonlinear and difficult to analyze with traditional RF analysis tools. BDA's RF FastSPICE allows us to quickly and accurately analyze our toughest VCOs and PLLs enabling our engineers to confidently tape-out their designs much faster."

Immediate Availability and Easy Integration
Analog FastSPICE and RF FastSPICE are available immediately and integrate into existing flows without modification. Both tools include full Cadence Virtuoso ADE integration, full Synopsys HSPICE and Cadence Spectre netlist compatibility, and support standard models, such as BSIM3, BSIM4, Verilog-A, and s-parameter.

“The analog and RF design community has been working with and around simulation tool limitations far too long,” said Ravi Subramanian, CEO at Berkeley Design Automation. “Analog FastSPICE and RF FastSPICE will enable design teams to deliver better silicon significantly faster and with much lower risk. Our aim is to enable significant advancements in the state-of-the-art of circuit design. That’s exactly what these tools do.”

About Berkeley Design Automation
Berkeley Design Automation Inc. is a recognized leader in advanced analog/RF verification. Its Precision Circuit Analysis technology combines the accuracy, performance, and robustness needed to verify GHz designs in nanometer-scale silicon. Berkeley Design Automation is the recipient of the 2006 Red Herring 100 North America Award, making it the first EDA company to earn such a distinction in 5 years. Founded in 2003, the company is funded by Woodside Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Matsushita Electric Industrial. For more information, see http://www.berkeley-da.com.