Cadence has overhauled its Virtuoso mixed-signal and RF design suite. “It’s now on an OpenAccess data base and we have a the same user interface for all of the tools inside the design flow,” product marketing manager Steven Lewis told
Electronics Weekly.
For those wanting the original look and feel, “we will maintain the old release stream 5.1.4 for several years”, said Lewis.
Virtuoso was a one-size-fits-all product, but will now be available in three versions: L, XL and GXL.
“With the L version you get the tools from A to Z, but very basic,” said Lewis. This is aimed at the “smaller design firms and Asia Pac where they use more guys and less automation”.
XL offers more productivity assistance and is aimed at larger companies with smaller groups of highly trained engineers, said Lewis: “Most of the top guys will settle at this level.”
Up from there, said Lewis, GXL includes yield optimisation, floor-planning and advanced parasitic capability which will appeal to “top companies on bleeding-edge designs.”
The last major change from previous versions of the suite is the introduction of ‘constraint-driven design’. “This is needed with the globalisation of design teams,” said Lewis. “The first revision can include constraints like matching, distance and symmetry, then anyone down the line who tries to change them gets warned,” said Lewis. “They can change them, but it is tracked automatically for discussion at design review. This hasn’t been done before in the industry, not even in past Cadence tools.”