Description

      

CMOS technologies below 90nm will enable adding value to many products and services, e.g., in mobile communication and transportation. However, the use of these technologies is severely limited by the increase in design cost and power consumption. This is a challenge, but also a large opportunity for EDA (Electronic Design Automation). EDA tools are key for designing and producing electronic systems enabling innovative products.

In the European funded (FP6-CRAFT) project MAP2 (Micro-Architectural Power management: Methods, Algorithms and Prototype tools), the partners BullDAST s.r.l. and ChipVision Design Systems AG work together, in collaboration with research partners OFFIS e.V. and Politecnico di Torino, towards the implementation of new methods and tools for architectural power management that will go far beyond the current commercial offer of EDA vendors. The project was funded by the European Union as a 1.5 year CO-Operative Research Project (11/2006 - 04/2008).

The tool products of BullDAST s.r.l. and ChipVision Design Systems AG are complementary working at different, but adjacent phases of the design chain. The ORINOCO tool by ChipVision allows power analysis and optimization at the pre-implementation phase, when the micro-architecture of a subsystem is designed from C or SystemC specifications. The PowerChecker tool by BullDAST performs architectural power estimation and optimization before RTL synthesis.

      

The results of the project are prototypes of two EDA tools, namely new versions of ORINOCO and PowerChecker. The new prototype products of MAP2 allow a seamless design flow between both tools and an automatic insertion of power management structures. This will be done at the earliest possible phases of design development, thus ensuring the highest efficiency. Such solutions will secure both SME EDA vendors a privileged position in their market.

The new tools will also put the user of such tools in a favorable situation, because they will be able to design low power devices in the shortest possible time. Within the project the partner CSEM, Switzerland, is such a user being a world leading circuits and systems design house with a business in the domain of full-custom and semi-custom design services.