Overview
Cadence offers simulation and board design solutions to designers at each stage of FPGA design--from concept to implementation--to accelerate time-to-market. Cadence’ broad portfolio of tools address the diverse capability and price-points of both mainstream and high-end FPGA segments, including support for Windows, UNIX, and Linux environments. Cadence simulators can handle mixed-language intellectual property (IP) blocks, enable mixed-signal simulation, and deliver industry-leading performance. In addition, Incisive™ Verification Platform has advanced methodologies (e.g., transaction- and assertion-based verification) that are critical for high-end designers that demand a single solution for both ASIC and FPGA designs. Cadence also offers a diverse portfolio of printed circuit board (PCB) tools to explore and resolve electrical board-level and performance-based issues, including the design of high-speed Stratix® GX devices.
Figure 1. Cadence Design Flow for FPGAs
Tools
Table 1 lists design tools supporting Altera® devices.
| Table 1. Design Tools Supporting Altera Devices | ||
| Design Flow | Tool Name | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| Verification | ||
| Simulation | Incisive | Today's multimillion gate pin-grid arrays (PGAs) and systems on programmable chips (SOPCs) demand verification tools that are comparable to ASIC designs. The Incisive platform addresses the needs of high-end designers who want a single solution, suitable for both ASIC and FPGA designs. Incisive is the world's first single-kernel verification platform that supports a unified methodology from system design to system design-in for all design domains. It delivers full-chip performance throughout the entire design cycle and compresses total verification time by up to 50 percent. In addition, embedded FPGA awareness of the Incisive platform, in the form of accelerated FPGA libraries and verification IP models, makes Incisive uniquely suitable for high-end FPGA and SOPC designs. |
| NC Desktop Family | Verilog Desktop, VHDL Desktop, and NC-Sim Desktop simulators for the Windows platform embody the ideal combinations of capability and price-point for the mainstream FPGA segment. FPGA designers who demand more robust solutions than the limited-capability OEM tools find the industry-leading functionality, performance, and capacity of the NC Desktop family to accelerate FPGA verification cycle-time significantly. Simulators in the NC Desktop family include Simvision Graphical Analysis and Signalscan Waveform Display Tools that are perfect for designing today’s complex FPGAs and SOPCs. |
|
| Formal Verification | Encounter Conformal | As part of the Encounter™ functional verification platform, Encounter Conformal® provides the only complete equivalence checking (EC) solution available for verifying complex system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs from RTL to layout. |
| Board Level | ||
| Board Design Entry | PCB Librarian Expert | Provides everything a librarian needs to create, validate, and verify the packaging of library parts from Concept® HDL schematic capture through the Allegro® layout flow. |
| OrCAD Capture | Capture CIS is an advanced version of OrCAD Capture® schematic entry allowing teams to share and reuse centralized parts information. | |
| Concept HDL | Concept HDL streamlines the high-speed design process by merging schematic design with PCB design. It combines schematic design entry capabilities with extensive simulation and board layout solutions, and serves as the "productivity hub" for all CAE-required tasks associated with system design flow. | |
| Allegro | Allegro is the world's leading PCB layout system, comprising the industry’s first true physical and electrical constraint-driven PCB layout tool. It forms the core of the Cadence PCB Design Expert and PCB Design Studio suites, which provide fully interactive environments for creating and editing complex and/or high-speed, multi-layer printed circuit boards. | |
| OrCAD Layout | OrCAD Layout® place-and-route editor offers PCB designers the power and flexibility to create and share PCB data and constraints across the design flow. | |
| Board Verification | SPECCTRAQuest SI Expert | SPECCTRAQuest® SI Expert provides a solution to help users develop optimum constraints and enable constraint-driven PCB design flow for ICs with high-speed IOs. SPECCTRAQuest reads and writes Allegro database and includes a graphical topology editor, Constraint Manager, Floorplanner, and a spice-based simulation subsystem that is proven for gigabit design trade-offs. |
| SPECCTRAQuest Power Integrity | An add-on option for SPECCTRAQuest SI Expert, SPECCTRAQuest Power Integrity is an integrated design and analysis environment to clear, reliable power delivery systems that work at all frequency ranges of interest. Embedded with proven technology from Sun Microsystems, Power Integrity combines the right frequency domain analysis engine with proven successful SPECCTRAQuest and Allegro design environments. | |
Contact Information
For additional information, contact Cadence Design Systems at:
Cadence Design Systems
Corporate Headquarters
2655 Seely Avenue
San Jose, CA 95134
Tel: 408.943.1234
Fax: 408.943.0513
E-mail: salesinfo@cadence.com
URL: www.cadence.com
Related Links
Concept, Allegro, OrCAD Capture, OrCAD Layout, and SPECCTRAQuest are registered trademarks of Cadence Design Systems.
