Cadence Conformal Smart Logic Equivalence Checker

Cadence has announced the Conformal Smart Logic Equivalence Checker (LEC), an equivalence checking product that delivers improvements in equivalence checking runtime with minimal user effort. The Conformal Smart LEC offers an average of 4X runtime improvement compared to the previous generation of logic equivalency checking tools with the same compute resources.

With rapidly growing chip functionality, design sizes are increasing. In addition, with advances in logic synthesis at advanced nodes, designers employ aggressive synthesis techniques to achieve power, performance and area (PPA) goals.

These advances in both design size and complexity stress equivalence checking proof methods and can result in long runtimes and sometimes inconclusive results. Equivalence checking is a critical step in digital tapeout flows, and the Conformal Smart LEC solution addresses these issues.

For more information, visit Cadence’s website.

Dassault Systèmes Launches SOLIDWORKS 2018

Dassault Systèmes has launched SOLIDWORKS 2018, the latest release in its portfolio of 3D design and engineering applications. Powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, SOLIDWORKS 2018 supports business design strategies with features that simplify the interactions between disciplines across the product development workflow. This process leverages smart manufacturing — a connected and seamless flow of data that is available to all teams involved in product development whenever, wherever and in whatever format is needed without having to port data from one system to another.

A key feature of SOLIDWORKS 2018 is SOLIDWORKS CAM, an application that provides rules-based machining with knowledge capture to allow for the automation of manufacturing programming. Designers and engineers can gain a greater understanding of how their designs are made, make more informed decisions and quickly create prototype parts and manufacture in-house to control quality, cost and delivery. This application also allows teams to execute “build to order” strategies with custom parts that are automatically designed and programmed in seconds rather than hours.

Additional technical specifications and features are available on Dassault’s website.

Hitachi IoT Service Portal

Hitachi has announced the development of ExTOPE, an integrated IoT service portal for the equipment it makes. This portal will collect, store and manage measurement data and equipment operation data produced by Hitachi High-Tech equipment. This cloud-based service will enable users to share and analyze data among a range of support capabilities aimed at improving operating efficiency.

ExTOPE will provide cloud-based collection, centralized management and utilization of the data produced by Hitachi equipment. The portal will allow users to view measurement data, monitor equipment status and share an operating screen remotely. Hitachi also plans to offer applications to create a user environment that caters to a variety of needs such as remote maintenance or data analysis.

For more information, visit Hitachi’s website.

Keysight VSA Software

Keysight has revealed its pre-5G modulation analysis option, available in the 89600 VSA software release, enabling component, module and system designers to be first-to-market with the upcoming 3GPP 5G NR standard.

89600 VSA provides time, frequency and modulation domain analysis for pre-5G signals based on the Verizon 5G open trial specification. The software allows designers to configure result traces (e.g., acquisition time and spectrum) and pre-5G specific modulation quality metrics and traces for quick and easy identification of signal characteristics. The software also helps designers troubleshoot intermittent error peaks and repeated synchronization failures.

Using 89600 VSA, users can make EVM and other signal quality measurements of 3GPP 5G NR-like signals. Measurements for DFT-spread orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) (SC-FDMA) and CP-OFDM are made using a custom OFDM modulation analysis application. The software's link to the SystemVue simulation environment gives designers more options when working with the draft specification.

Information concerning pricing and availability can be found on Keysight’s website.

Pico SDK drivers for Windows

Pico Technology has released a PicoSDK driver package installer for its PicoScope oscilloscope and PicoLog data loggers for Microsoft Windows. This release adds drivers for the latest PicoScope 2000A and 2000B models and the PicoScope 4444, as well as various fixes for other drivers.

The PicoSDK (consisting of the drivers, Programmer’s Guides and software examples) allows the development of custom applications and integration into other systems. The drivers can be used with any programming language that supports standard C calls and allows users direct control of the PicoScope and PicoLog devices.

A significant change in this release is that the PicoSDK installer now only contains the drivers, static library files, C/C++ header files and changelog information. Programmer’s Guides and software examples are now available individually. This will make it easier to install and update the needed files.

For more information, visit Pico’s website.

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