Cadence Introduces the Voltus-XFi Custom Power Integrity Solution, Delivering over 3X Productivity Gains

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Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced the new Cadence® Voltus™-XFi Custom Power Integrity Solution, a custom electromigration and IR drop (EM-IR) solution that delivers improved ease of use with minimal tuning and enables the development of efficient, low-power ICs. Using the new Voltus-XFi solution, which is seamlessly integrated into the Cadence Quantus™, Virtuoso® and Spectre® platforms, customers can experience over a 3X productivity improvement versus existing solutions.

The Voltus-XFi solution allows customers to efficiently extract, simulate, analyze and debug IC designs. Utilizing foundry-recommended settings, the consolidated EM-IR cockpit offers customers a workflow from the Quantus Extraction Solution to Spectre EM-IR simulation to the Virtuoso environment. The Voltus-XFi solution’s intuitive EM-IR results browser allows customers to view violations, zoom into interesting areas and overlay results in the Virtuoso platform, enabling easy identification and violation fixing.

“With the continuous innovation in low-power designs, there is an ever-increasing demand for power integrity solutions,” said Sangyun Kim, vice president of the Foundry Design Technology Team at Samsung Electronics. “We continue to collaborate with Cadence on innovative technologies such as the Voltus-XFi solution to enable low-power design and verification. Together, we develop leading-edge products that reduce power consumption and make our world greener.”

“As a leader in high-speed and low-power memory PHY IP solutions, it is vital we achieve fast design closure to meet our aggressive time-to-market goals,” said Alan Poon, VP engineering at The Six Semiconductor Inc. “Cadence’s Voltus-XFi solution increased our designer productivity by over 3X in identifying and fixing EM-IR problems. We look forward to deploying the solution to accelerate our design closure."

Through integration with Cadence’s Voltus IC Power Integrity Solution, customers using the Voltus-XFi solution have access to a seamless flow for full-chip signoff verification. The patented voltage-based method provides a smaller memory footprint and runs faster than the industry's traditional current-based method. This easy-to-use option automatically balances accuracy and performance tradeoffs based on user specifications. Additionally, a distributed process is supported to further improve runtime performance.

“Cadence is enabling sustainable electronics by reducing semiconductor power consumption,” said Tom Beckley, senior vice president and general manager of the Custom IC and PCB Group at Cadence. “To ensure our customers can push the boundaries of low-power design, we are developing fast and accurate power analysis tools, such as our new Voltus-XFi solution that enables new and revolutionary capabilities for power reduction. Developing low-power designs is critical so Cadence will continue to develop groundbreaking technologies that improve people’s lives.”

“To address the industry’s most complex automatic test equipment challenges, a robust power network is critical for us as an integrated circuit provider,” said Simon Leigh, vice president of engineering at Elevate Semiconductor. “Cadence’s Voltus-XFi solution enables us to run EM-IR analysis at full chip, which we could not do with our existing solution. We are adopting the solution for full production use.” 

The new Voltus-XFi solution supports the Cadence Intelligent System Design™ strategy, enabling design excellence.