Synopsys, Inc. announced that Renesas Electronics Corporation has deployed Synopsys’ Fusion Compiler™ RTL-to-GDSII implementation solution for its high-performance automotive system-on-chips (SoCs) and mission-critical microcontrollers (MCUs) to accelerate broad market access to next-generation automotive designs. Fusion Compiler delivered optimal timing and power quality-of-results (QoR), smaller area, and faster time-to-results (TTR) on multiple production designs during Renesas’ extensive validation process. After successfully realizing the compelling benefits of the solution on initial designs, Renesas is broadly deploying Fusion Compiler to extend the benefits to its automotive design teams. Renesas will join other market-leading semiconductor companies to share its experiences with Fusion Compiler at the Lunch-and-Learn Panel at the Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) Silicon Valley Conference at the Santa Clara Convention Center on March 21, 2019.

Fusion Compiler is uniquely architected to enable design teams to achieve the optimal levels of power, performance, and area (PPA) in the most convergent manner to ensure the fastest and most predictable TTR. Built using a single, highly-scalable data model, and based around an analysis backbone that leverages technology from the industry’s golden-signoff analysis tools, Fusion Compiler guarantees that these critical PPA metrics are optimized efficiently and effectively throughout the full RTL-to-GDSII design flow. Fusion Compiler delivers best-in-class PPA through a highly-leveraged optimization framework, resulting in a fully-unified physical synthesis and optimization methodology where industry-leading technologies can be deployed at any point throughout the flow for maximum effect. This groundbreaking approach delivers up to 20 percent better timing, 10-15 percent better total power, and up to 5 percent better area compared to using a traditional combination of front- and back-end tools. Additionally, Fusion Compiler’s novel synthesis engine has been further enhanced to support innovative hierarchical design flows and global design planning methodologies to provide significant productivity gains.

Synopsys Updates LightTools

Synopsys, announced the release of version 8.7 of its LightTools® illumination design software for the modeling, analysis, and optimization of illumination optics. LightTools 8.7 introduces advanced capabilities to help optical designers pinpoint and correct stray light issues—including ghost images and flare—early in the design process. Designers can quickly prototype their opto-mechanical systems, explore the interactions of light with system components, and identify sources of unwanted surface interactions that impact system performance. LightTools stray light analysis is particularly useful for improving the design of next-generation illumination optics used in space-borne telescopes, infrared optical systems, consumer electronics, autonomous vehicles, and AR/VR/MR applications.

The comprehensive toolkit of stray light analysis features in LightTools 8.7 is supported by fast performance, industry-leading accuracy, and efficient workflows. Highlights include:

  • Support for the Harvey-Shack and ABg scattering models, as well as a scatter evaluation tool, to simulate highly-polished surfaces. In addition, a new microfacet optical property allows rough surfaces to be precisely modeled using a single, on-axis bidirectional scattering distribution function (BSDF) measurement, greatly reducing measurement costs and time, or by direct measurement of the surface’s slope distribution.
  • New receiver filters that track ray-surface interactions and identify contributions from ghosts and flare. These filters can help designers isolate imaging rays or specular and scatter illuminance.
  • The Ray Path analysis enhancements that deliver increased performance and provide detailed data to locate ghost images. This data can identify how much unwanted power is incident on a detector, for example, or identify the peak power when looking for distinct ghost images and evaluating a system prone to laser damage.
  • Options for specifying a Normalized Power Range to filter analysis results to a subset of ray paths based on the total power collected in each path.
  • Scatter aiming enhancements that provide additional flexibility when specifying aim areas, with options for polygonal and surface-based shapes, as well as the ability to position the aim area in global coordinates.
  • Contamination scattering for modeling the effects of dust and other particulates that may contaminate optical surfaces, such as mirrors.