Synopsys Mentor Cadence TSMC GlobalFoundries SNPS MENT CDNS (original) (raw)

( SNUG 07 Item 9 ) ----------------------------------------------- [03/25/08]

Subject: Mentor Calibre, Synopsys Hercules, Cadence Assura, Magma Quartz

CALIBRE SLIPPING -- OK, DC slipping, then First Encounter slipping, and NOW the highly esteemed Calibre is slipping, too???

2005 - "Which DRC/LVS do you use?"

               Mentor Calibre:  ################################ 79%
            Synopsys Hercules:  ######### 23%
  Cadence Assura/Dracula/Diva:  ####### 18%
             Silvaco Guardian:  # 1%

2007 - "Mentor Calibre, Synopsys Hercules, Cadence Dracula/Assura/PVS, Magma Mojave Quartz DRC: what is your current project using?"

               Mentor Calibre:  ######################## 59%
            Synopsys Hercules:  ############## 36%
   Cadence Assura/Dracula/PVS:  ########## 26%
          Magma Mojave Quartz:  ## 5%

"I still see Mentor is the major player by far," said Gary. "The only real technical challenge they have is Magma Quartz. The Cadence numbers are inertia. Hell, a lot of them are still olde Dracula licenses. I disagree with those Synopsys Hercules numbers going up. I just haven't seen it."

The tone of the Hercules user comments is that they've been gruggingly forced to use Herc -- i.e. they'd rather use Calibre if given the choice.

Not a single user said word one about Cadence PVS whatsoever. It's almost as if it never existed! :)

     ----    ----    ----    ----    ----    ----   ----

1 Calibre 2 Quartz 3 Hercules. We are forced to use Hercules.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Use Assura because our foundry forces us to. Wish we could use Calibre.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Current project is using Calibre. We will be forced under pain of death to move to Hercules on our next project. Corporate policy.

Some comments:

• Calibre is industry standard for a reason. It is a very fast and intelligent tool. It appears to have very robust algorithms for DRC and LVS, I have had the least trouble with debugging issues from my users from this tool. I do wish Mentor Graphics would turn on some of the tighten some of the checking options by default, though.

• Hercules has so many problems that I think the only reason why we use it beyond corporate policy is because our esteemed management couldn't be bothered getting resources to retool our flows to use a better tool. They have all the performance data (which conclusively shows that Hercules is 2X - 5X slower), and it has not swayed them a bit. There is no guaranteed rule compatibility between versions. Hearing the words "explode list" makes me want to "explode" Hercules in a destructive manner.

• Assura is only useful if you are using Cadence's parasitic extraction engine. Beyond that, we are anxious to rid ourselves of it. In general, we find it is 3X slower than Calibre for LVS on identical layout. It is also slow, and while its internal algorithms appear more robust than Hercules, it isn't saying much. I've never seen a tool claim a design is LVS clean, despite it reporting pin mismatches.

  • [ An Anon Engineer ]

Mentor Calibre and Synopsys Hercules.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

1/2 is old processes using Dracula. Everything else is Hercules (with everything moving that way if possible).

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Hercules. But Calibre has better runset support from our fabs. Sometimes it depends on the fab which tool we use.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Synopsys Hercules. We don't have Mentor Calibre. :(

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

SNPS, but some of our designer say Calibre would be the better solution.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Quartz DRC and Synopsys Hercules for sign-off (though Calibre was preferred hands down by engineers)

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Sign-off is Calibre. We also use Assura.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Hercules, we have Mojave but don't have the run decks for my process

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

We use Assura and Diva because of PDK support. Our experience has been that the Assura DRC rule decks caught errors that Calibre did not.

  - David Schwan of Sirenza Microdevices

Mentor Calibre is our DRC/LVS champ. We have more licenses for Assura, but we only use it for very, very small designs, as it's terribly slow and gets hung up on memories.

  - Tom Mannos of Sandia National Laboratories

Assura & Calibre

  - Manfred Kaiser of Atmel

Calibre kicks all the others, IMO. Easier to modify rules, less memory, faster, great support from Mentor, etc.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Calibre. Foundry support is the strongest.

  - Jonathan Bahl of COT Consulting, Inc.

Calibre. Next project (40nm) will use both Calibre and Quartz

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

I think we're using in-house tools.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Calibre and Assura LVS.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Mentor Calibre + Cadence Assura. Assura most used for historical reasons. Calibre as a tool is better and is replacing Assura (slowly because need to rewrite all decks).

  - Jerome Poidevin of Atmel

Calibre DRC, Assura LVS

  - Wolfgang Welser of Qimonda

Mixture of Calibre + Hercules. Calibre exclusively for short detection.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Hercules

  - John Stiles of Silicon Logic Engineering

LSI has projects using Mentor Calibre, Synopsys Hercules, Cadence Assura.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

My project uses Cadence (Assura).

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Mentor Calibre, cause this is the golden tool of the Foundry (UMC).

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Calibre. I don't use it personally but I hear from folks who do that its pretty much the defacto for them.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Mentor Calibre on most platforms. Assura on old platform (in maintenance mode). We also use Synopsys Hercules to generate IP view CONN/CSF (to be used by AstroRail and PrimeRail). Hercules is not being used for DRC or LVS.

  - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Index Next->Item