Overview
Mentor Graphics® Corporation is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services, and award-winning support for the world's most successful electronics and semiconductor companies. It is the only EDA company with a fully integrated tool solution capable of handling all aspects of FPGA design, from co-verification and synthesis to embedded software and board layout.
The challenges of designing with a combination of large, complex intellectual property (IP) blocks, high-speed I/O, hard and soft embedded processors, and embedded software on a single FPGA are exacerbated by the soaring system gate counts and packaging requirements which tax the capabilities of traditional design methodologies. The design of these chips requires a new degree of sophistication, characterized by deeper, system-level design, concurrent hardware/software design, and verification at all stages of the design process.
Mentor Graphics is continuing its commitment to provide a comprehensive, fully integrated suite of design tools tailored for the next generation of programmable logic device (PLD) architectures. Mentor Graphics provides tools and flows that address the following areas:
- Design creation and implementation
- Embedded software integration and development
- Verification
- PCB-level design and verification
Tools
Table 1 lists design tools supporting Altera® devices.
| Table 1. Design Tools Supporting Altera Devices | ||
| Design Flow | Tool Name | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| System Level | ||
| Hardware/Software Partitioning and Co-simulation |
Nucleus | Real-time operating system |
| Platform Express | To help system on a chip (SoC) designers maximize the potential of platform-based design methodology, Mentor Graphics has developed the Platform Express design capture and verification tool. | |
| Seamless | Hardware/software co-verification. | |
| System Architect | System Architect combines the VE System Design product functionality with performance modeling, architecture, and hardware/software exploration and partitioning. | |
| Design Entry | ||
| Design Entry | FPGA Advantage | The FPGA Advantage design flow provides a complete integrated design environment targeting high-complexity FPGA design. |
| HDL Designer Series | HDL Designer Series is an HDL environment developed to manage the complexity of growing ASIC and FPGA designs. | |
| Visual Elite | Visual Elite System Design provides a high-performance, high-level C/C++ and SystemC functional modeling design and verification environment that enables you to quickly capture and analyze system concepts, and then hand the design over for implementation. | |
| Synthesis | ||
| High Level Synthesis | Catapult C | Catapult is a high-level synthesis tool that uses industry-standard ANSI C++ to generate correct-by-construction, high-quality RTL 10-100x faster than other methods. |
| RTL Synthesis | Precision RTL Synthesis | Precision RTL is used for rapid, high-quality results on a variety of FPGA technologies. |
| LeonardoSpectrumTM | LeonardoSpectrum is used for proven solutions to the broadest set of CPLD/FPGA and ASIC transition synthesis problems. | |
| Physical Synthesis | Precision Physical Synthesis | Precision Physical is used for getting to market faster with challenging FPGA designs that push the performance and timing envelope. |
| Verification | ||
| Simulation | ModelSim® | ModelSim is the world’s most popular and widely-used VHDL and mixed-VHDL/Verilog simulator and the fastest-growing Verilog simulator. |
| Formal Verification | FormalPro | FormalPro is an industry-leading formal verification equivalency checker that enables multi-million gate ASIC and SoC verification. |
| Board Level | ||
| Board Design Entry | PADS | Complete PCB design solution combining schematic definition with powerful layout and simulation tools. |
| DX Designer | DxDesigner provides a sophisticated yet scalable design definition environment that integrates with multiple layout tools across multiple computing platforms. | |
| I/O Designer | I/O Designer automates the process of placing and connecting pins and maintains connectivity across multiple design iterations. | |
| Board Station | Board Station is used for the PCB design challenges of the global enterprise. | |
| Expedition | Expedition Series is used for the creation of today’s most complex PCB designs. | |
| Board Verification | Tau | Tau performs exhaustive worst-case timing analysis and verification on designs using an advanced symbolic timing methodology, which eliminates false paths typically reported in standard static timing tools. |
| ICX | ICX is the first PCB signal integrity tool to support IBIS, SPICE, and VHDL-AMS in a single simulation environment, enabling users to employ signal integrity models created in multiple languages for full board-level and system-level verification. | |
| HyperLynx | The HyperLynx suite of tools can be used in virtually any design flow to help eliminate signal integrity, crosstalk, and EMC problems early in the process. These simulation and analysis tools come ready-to-use with unprecedented ease-of-use, delivering high-speed analysis to every engineer’s desktop. | |
Contact Information
For additional information, contact Mentor Graphics at:
Mentor Graphics
8005 Southwest Boeckman Road
Wilsonville, OR 97070
Phone: (503) 685-7000
Toll-free: (800) 547-3000
URL: www.mentor.com
Precision, LeonardoSpectrum, FPGA Advantage, HDL Designer Series, ModelSim, Platform Express, Seamless, XRAY, FormalPro, FPGA BoardLink, Board Station, Expedition, Tau, and ICX are trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation.
