Silicon Perspective's First Encounter Integrated Into Mitsubishi Electric's ASIC Design Flow

Physical Prototype Methodology Supports ASIC Placement Handoff for System-on-Chip Timing Closure

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 30, 2001-- Silicon Perspective Corporation (SPC), the leading supplier of IC design tools for full-chip silicon prototypes, announced that the company's First Encounter® software has been integrated into the standard ASIC design flow of the Electronic Device Group of Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc. This integration enables Mitsubishi Electric's North American ASIC customers to rapidly assess the timing and routability of a design and produce their own hierarchical partitioning, floorplan and placement without having to go through a full physical design cycle.

"SPC's First Encounter offers our system-on-chip customers a rapid, effective way to directly control timing closure on complex flat and hierarchical designs," said Kenji Baba, director of system-level IC marketing for Mitsubishi Electric & Electronics USA, Inc. "This flow is fast, easy to use, and produces accurate, physically feasible results on very large designs."

Mitsubishi Electric offers a very effective methodology for ASIC designers who want greater visibility into their chip's physical implementation than afforded by simply handing off a logical netlist. By using SPC's First Encounter software, they can quickly create an ASIC "physical prototype," which is essentially a trial layout of the entire chip. This gives very close timing and routing correlation to final silicon. The physical prototype includes a design-rule compliant, timing-correct, and known-routable floorplan and placement that can be handed directly to Mitsubishi Electric for final physical implementation.

"We're delighted to have an alliance with Mitsubishi Electric to deliver support for this flow," stated Michel Courtoy, SPC's vice president of marketing. "Traditional floorplanning tools haven't worked well in ASIC flows, because they did not ensure the chip could actually be completed. First Encounter's physical prototype approach finally gives ASIC designers the confidence to take ownership of the floorplan and placement aspects of a design. This significantly reduces the number of iterations between the designers and their ASIC vendor."

About SPC

Silicon Perspective Corporation lets engineers create full-chip silicon virtual prototypes that provide design closure throughout the design cycle, starting at RTL and progressing through placement and trial routing. The full-chip virtual prototype accurately represents the final chip that will tape-out (timing, die size, power, signal integrity). As the whole chip design progresses, the silicon virtual prototype can be updated daily if necessary to make sure the design stays on target. SPC's products are compatible with industry standard interfaces and data formats and easily integrate with popular IC design tools sets from Avant! (NASDAQ: AVNT - news), Cadence (NYSE: CDN - news) and Synopsys (NASDAQ: SNPS - news).

Visit Silicon Perspective Corporation at www.SiPerspective.com for more information.

Note to Editors: Silicon Perspective Corporation and First Encounter are trademarks of Silicon Perspective Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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