20 Dec 2012

Aldec Optimizes FPGA Routing Resources

Aldec Europe has released its ALINT 2012.12. This is an advanced static design analysis and checking solution that decreases verification time by identifying critical issues early in the RTL design phase of ASIC and FPGA designs.

ALINT 2012.12 delivers performance improvements, a team-based task management utility and a new premium rule library that includes checkers to optimize routing resources in designs targeting today’s largest FPGAs.

“Although each device family is unique as a place and route target, mismanagement of routing resources negatively impacts resource utilization, performance and power,” said Dmitry Melnik, Product Manager, Aldec Software Division. “Within the RTL, routing-unaware design styles limit choices for the place and route tools later in the design cycle. This results in additional routing capacitance and delay, and consequently increased power and impaired performance. In contrast, routing-aware design techniques improve routing utilization and allow place and route applications to consume less of the target device and produce better quality results.”

Three core issue types addressed by the new checkers implemented in ALINT 2012.12 premium rule library are:

1) Logic placement at different levels of design hierarchy (hierarchical design)

2) Suboptimal cross-hierarchy interconnections that increase fanout

3) I/O port registering issues

The guidelines supported in ALINT’s premium rule library enable logic synthesis and place and route tools to provide more efficient chip utilization. The new rules benefit not only FPGA designs but are also equally applicable to ASIC designs that use multiple FPGA boards for prototyping, where partitioning and resource management can be very challenging.

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