Cadence To Release the Industry's First Mixed-Signal Methodology Book

The new era of “Internet Everywhere” creates a whole new spectrum of applications, ranging from health care, automotive, to entertainment and cloud computing, which demand more and more mixed-signal and low power designs.  In fact, mixed-signal applications have become one of the fastest growing segments in the electronics and semiconductor industry.

Traditional mixed-signal designs treat the analog and digital designs as two independent tasks. It has become clear in recent years that such a design methodology will not be able to meet the challenges of current and future advanced mixed-signal designs. For example, on the verification side, mixed-signal designers are facing increasing difficulties in design and verification of complex mixed-signal SoCs, even though there are continuous improvements in the performance of analog and mixed-signal simulation tools. Without a comprehensive mixed-signal verification methodology, first-silicon success will be in jeopardy, which will in turn hurt the profitability of the companies.

On the implementation side, the technology challenges imposed by advanced nodes and tighter integration between analog circuitry and digital control logic demand that designers adopt a methodology to enable seamless analog and digital co-design to meet tape-out schedules and reduce design costs. Such a methodology change has been talked about in the industry for several years, but until now there has not been a complete reference book to document such methodologies and show how they can revolutionize mixed-signal designs. 

A new book, Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide, will be released by Cadence in this summer and will meet these requirements. The book is co-authored by mixed-signal design experts from Cadence as well as experts from the designer community. Find out more on www.cadence.com/msmguide. A preproduction release of the book will be featured at DAC 2012 in the Cadence booth #1930.

Qi Wang