Siemens‘ State-of-the-art Symphony Pro Platform Expands Mixed Signal IC Verification Capabilities

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

To address the design verification challenges of the world’s most complex mixed-signal systems-on-chip (SoCs), Siemens Digital Industries Software introduces the new Symphony™ Pro platform. This next generation solution extends the robust mixed-signal verification capabilities of Siemens’ proven Symphony platform to support new and advanced Accellera standardized verification methodologies with a powerful, comprehensive and intuitive visual debug cockpit, resulting in productivity improvements of up to 10X compared to legacy solutions.  

Next-generation automotive, imaging, IoT, 5G, computing and storage applications are driving strong demand for greater analog and mixed-signal content in next-generation SoCs. Mixed-signal circuits are increasingly ubiquitous -- whether it is integrating the analog signal chain with the digital-front end (DFE) in 5G massive-MIMO radios, digital RF-sampling data converters in radar systems, image sensors combining analog pixel read-out circuits with digital image signal processing or feeding datacenter computing resources with ever more data using advanced mixed-signal circuits to deliver PAM4 signaling. For these and other highly advanced applications, mixed-signal circuits enable lower power, area, and cost while delivering ever-improving performance figures.

“Mixed-Signal functional verification is increasingly vital for our sophisticated designs targeted for the imaging and automotive industries. We've participated in the early access program for Symphony Pro and have seen significant productivity gains thanks to advanced debugging capabilities and seamless support for multi-layer sandwich configurations in Symphony Pro,” said Stephane Vivien, senior CAD manager, Imaging Division, STMicroelectronics. “We look forward to using Symphony Pro as our sign-off solution for present and future mixed-signal verification projects.”

Increased application of digital control, digital calibration, and digital signal processing techniques in modern mixed-signal chip architectures is driving a paradigm shift in mixed-signal verification methodologies toward more digital-centric approaches. Siemens’s new Symphony Pro platform -- built on the proven performance of Siemens’ Symphony and Questa™ Visualizer platforms -- extends the rapid deployment of industry-standard Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) and Unified Power Format (UPF) driven low-power techniques into the mixed signal domain by offering fast simulation performance in a unified environment for exceptional throughput and capacity.

Modern mixed-signal SoCs integrate analog circuits with logic gates operating at very high clock speeds. This high frequency bi-directional signal flow at the boundary of analog and digital pushes the limit of manual debug methodologies impacting the overall time-to-results. Symphony Pro Visualizer MS environment offers a seamless debug experience across the entire mixed-signal design hierarchy with comprehensive analysis, automation, and ease-of-use for increased productivity.

“Our high-performance, energy-efficient chips designed for the IoT are analog intensive and mixed-signal in nature. To ensure high quality, we expanded our digital verification methodology to enable effective regression of our mixed-signal designs,” said Jayanth Shreedhara, senior CAD manager at Silicon Labs. “Symphony Pro Visualizer mixed-signal technology accelerated debug turn-around time for our digital on top UVM test suites, enhancing our verification productivity from days to hours and dramatically improving our coverage closure.” 

“Our customers are rapidly advancing the state-of-the-art in mixed-signal SoC design across a wide range of applications, and in the process, they are driving the requirements for new innovations in the EDA tools required to design, verify, and validate these chips,” said Ravi Subramanian, senior vice president of IC Verification at Siemens Digital Industries Software. “We are excited to deliver Symphony Pro, which combines our proven AFS, Questa and Visualizer technologies, to our customers, enabling the potential for them to realize key competitive advantages with a unified mixed-signal verification solution.“