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Home >> Documentation >> Press releases >> 2009
Fremont, California – March 17, 2008 – Gemini Design Technology, a start-up company focused on the speed and accuracy of verifying analog and mixed-signal designs, today announced production availability of the industry’s fastest SPICE-accurate simulator. GSim™. The new Gemini simulator has demonstrated run times and capacity of up to 30x that of earlier generation analog simulators through its use of next-generation core SPICE algorithms combined with a multi-threaded approach. It is available
immediately through Gemini’s global sales and distribution channels. Additionally, Gemini announced that it is offering GSim through an industry-first on-demand licensing model which optimizes the use of EDA licenses for multi-core computing platforms.
Gemini’s performance advantage is the result of a three-pronged approach. First, Gemini has made
significant improvements to the fundamental core SPICE algorithms. GSim’s device model evaluation is
highly optimized and efficient for modern device models such as bsim3v3 and bsim4. Its matrix
computation time scales roughly linearly with size and complexity of circuit matrices, making it
especially effective for large designs with high parasitic count.
Second, these core algorithms have been developed in a way that is optimal for multi-threaded
computation, applying up-to-date software architecture and programming for multi-core computers.
Third, GSim has the most comprehensive multi-threading implementation, parallelizing more internal processes than any other SPICE simulator in the industry. Unlike other tools which use accuracycompromising
techniques such as table model look-up, RC reduction, or netlist manipulation to achieve speed-ups, the Gemini simulator achieves its performance in a way that guarantees accuracy and the tool is 100% SPICE accurate.
“Performance has become a major issue in our analog and mixed-signal design environment. With Gemini, a simulation took six and half hours compared to three days with Synopsys’ HSPICE. The result is impressive and we achieved very good correlation between HSPICE and Gemini,” said Dr. Jim Gang,
President & CEO of Korea-based DavitDyne Co., Ltd.
Flexible licensing model
Gemini is offering GSim through a unique dynamic run-time licensing model that allows users to pay for
only the performance they require for the specific circuit type being run. GSim is unique in that it has the
ability to analyze a circuit netlist, and based upon available compute resources, automatically select the
optimal number of threads for each individual circuit, eliminating guess work by the user. Using a prepurchased
pool of credits or ‘tokens,’ each license is then configured at run-time for optimal software license and hardware utilization. This allows users to deploy the application in different product configurations – e.g. as a single threaded, low-cost early stage simulation tool; or more extensive multithreaded application on a multi-core configuration as a high performance and capacity post layout, late stage verification tool. The result is a more efficient use of software licenses.
“Multi-core computing has emerged as a powerful and cost-effective platform for EDA applications and the GSim simulator has been built from the ground up to take advantage of its benefits. In addition to the run time advantages provided through our multi-threaded approach, we are offering users even more efficiency through our flexible licensing model that allows them to choose and pay for only the
performance they require at any given point, effectively giving them more control over the per seat cost of
the tool and lowering overall hardware costs,” said Kent Jaeger, vice president of marketing and sales at
Gemini.
The technology behind GSim has been under development for three years and is being used in several production design environments and integrated within standard EDA tool flows. It has been benchmarked extensively against state of the art analog simulators, including multi-threaded ones, consistently performing 2x-30x faster than other multi-threaded SPICE-accurate simulators. Through this very
thorough beta testing and initial deployment period, the product’s robustness has significantly increased
and users have been able to correlate results with internal “golden waveforms.”
“We have used GSim for six months as a production tool, and it consistently outperforms Spectre and
Spectre-Turbo from Cadence. We were also particularly impressed with its compatibility within the Cadence ADE environment, and the ease of transition from having used Spectre in the past,” Bernie Griffiths, vice president, R&D at Mixed Signal Systems, Inc.
The product is well-suited for complex functions such as PLLs, ADCs and DAC’s, charge pumps, switched capacitors programmable Tx/Rx chains, power distribution circuitry, and memory IP, particularly where there are a large number of extracted post-layout parasitics which require exhaustive
verification prior to tapeout. GSIM works with industry standard netlist formats such as Spectre and HSPICE, is compatible with existing standard waveform viewers and offers a broad range of model support.
Pricing and availability
GSim is available immediately. Pricing starts at $2,000 for a single-thread, one-year license limited to
5,000 element capacity. Licensing options include fixed core licensing options and Gemini’s unique
runtime executed token-based licensing mechanism. GSim is available in a locked node or floating
license. It runs on standard X86 SMP single- and multi-core platforms equipped with 64bit Linux
operating systems.
About Gemini Design Technology
Gemini Design Technology is focused on the challenges of verifying large complex analog and mixed
signal designs. It has developed the industry’s fastest native multi-threaded approach to SPICE-accurate
simulation, delivering more throughput and capacity and lower cost of ownership. Founded in 2005 by
experienced analog tool developers, the company is backed by EDA pioneer Jim Solomon. It is based in
Fremont, California. More information can be found at www.gemini-da.com.
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