Software has new device support and delivers improved FPGA physical synthesis quality of results

Design Automation

7 May 2003 Design Automation

Synplicity has enhanced its Amplify Physical Optimizer software, a premier physical synthesis solution for FPGA designers.

The company has extended its MultiPoint technology and sophisticated interactive timing analysis capabilities to the Amplify software, enabling improved performance and faster timing closure when creating system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions. Further, Synplicity says that it now offers support for Altera's new high-performance Stratix, high-speed transceiver-based Stratix GX, and low-cost Cyclone devices and it has also further optimised its support for the Xilinx Virtex II-Pro devices.

"Using the Amplify software to perform simultaneous placement and optimisation, we believe designers can achieve an average performance boost of approximately 20% over traditional logic synthesis solutions - often enough to move a design to a lower speed-grade device and create the potential for saving tens of thousands of dollars for volume applications," said Jeff Garrison, director of marketing for FPGA products at Synplicity. "As this enhanced software demonstrates, we continue to work closely with Altera and Xilinx to create an optimised flow between our physical synthesis solution and their new devices, allowing our customers to obtain better timing performance and superior FPGA design methodologies."

The MultiPoint technology enables a unique difference-based incremental synthesis approach. This eliminates the need for complete re-synthesis, which is common with time-stamp-based incremental flows, by only re-synthesizing design entities that will have a different gate-level netlist due to code or constraint changes. The Amplify Physical Optimizer software's MultiPoint flow improves productivity by offering support for designers using the Xilinx Incremental Design Flow and Altera's LogicLock feature within the Quartus II design software.

Synplicity has also added interactive timing analysis capabilities, enabling designers to identify critical paths quickly and perform fast, interactive timing analysis without re-synthesizing their design. The timing analysis feature allows users to incrementally specify 'from-to' paths in their circuit for instant detailed analysis, saving time and improving productivity.

Leveraging Synplicity's extensive expertise in mapping to DSP and memory structures, the new optimised Amplify software enables the rapid design and development of Altera's high-performance Stratix and Stratix GX device families.

Share this article:

Categories

Design Automation

Software has new device support and delivers improved FPGA physical synthesis quality of results

Further reading:

Publications by Technews