Berkeley Design Automation has released a comprehensive noise analysis tool for complex analog and RF circuits. Called the noise analysis option, it handles every type of complex analog and RF circuits, including all analog-to-digital converters (ADCs), phase-locked loops (PLLs), DC-DC converters, frequency synthesizers, and voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs). Leveraging its Analog FastSPICE and RF FastSPICE technology, the noise analysis tool is fully compatible with existing flows, produces true SPICE accurate results, and is already silicon proven, said Berkeley Design. The developer claims it to be the industry's first comprehensive noise analysis tool for complex analog and RF circuits.

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"Device-noise-related issues have a critical impact on the design of our high-performance nanometer analog/RF and mixed-signal circuits," said Osamu Kobayashi, director mixed-signal LSI Lab, System LSI Development Laboratories, Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. "The noise analysis option gives us true SPICE accurate ADC and PLL noise analysis formidably faster than traditional SPICE transient simulations that do not even include device noise on Fujitsu Laboratories circuits. It is the only tool we know that is able to deliver true SPICE accurate transistor-level noise analysis for our complex mixed-signal circuits."

The noise analysis option includes the following functionality:

• Transient-noise analysis 5x-10x faster and 5x-10x higher capacity than any other tool.
• Periodic steady-state (PSS) convergence with up to 50,000 element capacity
• Periodic noise (pnoise) analysis that has no accuracy/performance tradeoff and is 5x-10x faster than any other tool for complex circuits
• Oscillator phase noise (oscnoise) analysis that delivers unmatched accuracy on autonomous circuits, provides node and device noise contribution, and automatically provides impulse sensitivity function (ISF) information for every node

The tool reads standard Cadence Spectre and Synopsys HSPICE netlists and models. It is fully integrated into Cadence Virtuoso Analog Design Environment and can operate from a command line. It produces standard output formats and includes sophisticated post-processing.

"We design highly complex, ultra-low power RF/analog and mixed-signal SoCs for biomedical applications," said Alan Wong, Wireless IC Design lead at Toumaz Technology. "We have significant challenges getting accurate noise analysis results with traditional RF analysis tools. Noise analysis option allows us to quickly analyze our oscillator and periodic blocks giving typically 5x speedup for no loss in accuracy, when compared to our existing methods."

"Virtually every customer designing complex analog and RF circuits in nanometer CMOS has asked us to extend our award-winning Analog FastSPICE technology to provide fast and accurate circuit simulation that includes device noise impact," said Ravi Subramanian, president and CEO of Berkeley Design Automation. "With the noise analysis option, we are proud to deliver the industry's first practical and comprehensive noise analysis tool for complex analog and RF circuits. The results our first dozen customers have obtained from this tool further reinforce our strong track-record in delivering silicon-accurate noise analysis for nanometer analog and RF designs."

www.berkeley-da.com