Siemens Digital Industries Software has unveiled its latest offering, the Solido Simulation Suite software, to speed up design and verification tasks for next-generation analogue, mixed-signal, and custom integrated circuit (IC) designs. This new package combines AI-accelerated SPICE, Fast SPICE, and mixed-signal simulators, enhancing speed and accuracy in the IC design process.
The Solido Simulation Suite builds upon Siemens' existing Analogue FastSPICE (AFS) platform, incorporating innovative new simulators, including Solido SPICE, Solido FastSPICE, and Solido LibSPICE, alongside their market-proven AFS, ELDO, and Symphony software.
Michael Ellow, CEO of Silicon Systems, Siemens Digital Industries Software, said, "Solido Simulation Suite, featuring AI-accelerated SPICE and FastSPICE engines, represents a significant leap forward in custom IC simulation technology, providing unmatched accuracy and efficiency for chip design and verification engineers."
"Our initial Solido Sim customers have experienced remarkable success across multiple process technology platforms, all while demonstrating faster runtimes and enabling compelling new capabilities for their next-generation analog, RF, mixed-signal, and library IP designs."
This suite is designed to assist IC design teams in meeting stringent specifications, verification coverage metrics, and time-to-market requirements. Utilising AI technologies supports next-generation process technologies and complex IC structures, ensuring accurate signal and power integrity goals are met.
The Solido SPICE software offers up to a 30-fold increase in speed for analogue, mixed-signal, RF, and 3D IC verification, thanks to advanced convergence algorithms and multi-core scalability. Solido FastSPICE provides significant speed advantages for SoC, memory, and analogue functional verification, with a scalable interface to maintain accuracy. Solido LibSPICE addresses small design verification needs with optimised runtimes and seamless integration with Siemens' Solido Design Environment and Solido Characterisation Suite.
Powering these simulators is Solido Sim AI, the latest version of Siemens' AI-accelerated simulation technology. Solido Sim AI leverages self-verifying algorithms tuned to SPICE accuracy to significantly improve simulation speeds without requiring changes to existing device models certified by foundries.
The Solido Simulation Suite integrates well with Siemens' broader suite of IC sign-off flows, including the Calibre platform, Tessent Test solutions and Siemens' electronic systems design and manufacturing solutions.
Several industry professionals have already noted the benefits of the new suite. Loc Duc Truong, Division VP at Ametek, highlighted the faster verification runtime: "Siemens Solido Simulation Suite provided us with SPICE and FastSPICE toolsets that demonstrated up to 19 times faster performance across our analogue and memory designs. This enables us to accelerate our verification schedules significantly, while empowering us to expand our roadmap with more innovative design solutions for our customers."
Stephen Fairbanks, CEO of Certus Semiconductor, stressed the benefits of speed and accuracy: "The decision was rooted in the consistent realisation of up to 30X speed-up with golden accuracy, translating to substantial savings in simulation cycles. This collaboration empowered us to successfully implement silicon-verified designs for high-voltage RF applications and introduce robust multi-protocol I/O solutions, showcasing adaptability and efficacy in advanced process nodes."
Michael Nagib, Director of Analogue/Mixed-Signal Engineering at Mixel, also expressed satisfaction with the suite's capabilities: "The newly released Solido Simulation Suite provided a remarkable 3x improvement in verification efficiency with the same accuracy, enabling us to innovate and grow our portfolio faster."
Randy Caplan, CEO and Co-Founder of Silicon Creations, noted the suite's impact on their high-complexity designs: "In our active participation in the early access program for Solido Simulation Suite, using various post-layout designs, we observed an impressive acceleration of up to 11X while preserving SPICE-level accuracy. We look forward to leveraging Solido Simulation Suite to validate our most complex designs, ensuring first silicon success and meeting our high-yield targets."
