CATALYST SEMICONDUCTOR FINDS CONTINUED SUCCESS WITH TANNER EDA
"Our analog/mixed signal design and test platform has to meet strict requirements with regard to features, performance, ease of use, support and overall value. We settled early on Tanner EDA…" Shashi Sakhuja, Director of Product Development, Catalyst Semiconductor
Catalyst Semiconductor, Inc. headquartered in Sunnyvale, California has been developing and marketing a diverse assortment of analog and mixed signal products for over 20 years, for industries ranging from networking and telecommunications to consumer, automotive and industrial markets. With the challenge of designing over 150 product offerings such as Digitally Programmable Potentiometers, Microcontroller Supervisory circuits, Power Management products and Non-volatile Memories generating US $60M in revenue in 2004, Catalyst needed a professional quality design environment that was fast, powerful and easy to use, yet also able to grow and adapt with their business. In 1998 they selected Tanner EDA to provide them with the versatile, high-performance design tools and customer support they require; Tanner EDA met their initial tools criteria, and has since kept pace every step of the way.
"Our analog/mixed signal design and test platform provider has to meet strict requirements with regard to features, performance, ease of use, support and overall value," said Shashi Sakhuja, Director of Product Development at Catalyst. "We settled early on Tanner and remain pleased with their responsiveness and capacity to deliver the tools we need within our budgetary constraints."
HiPer Silicon Makes Process Migration A Snap
In addition to its new product design work, Catalyst Semiconductor also does a brisk business in migrating existing products to "next generation" technologies. Using newer process technologies from various foundries, they create new devices with smaller footprints (e.g. TDFN, TSSOP) than their predecessors, with the option of using their new, environmentally friendly, halogen-free "Green Packaging". This type of redesign requires an entirely new circuit layout; Catalyst accelerates the monumental task of creating new "shrunk" layouts using Tanner EDAÕs HiPer Silicon with Calibre-compatible DRC.
"Using HiPer Silicon, the existing designs in some instances are 'shrunk' thus reducing the turnaround time necessary to get new products to market. The addition of Caliber DRC interface with HiPer Silicon is a great benefit since it speeds the verification time by allowing us to run the DRC on the Unix Platform and then review the fixes in Windows," said Sakhuja.
Network Licensing Increases Tooling Productivity
Mr. Sakhuja has also been extremely pleased with the value Tanner EDA provides. For example, since Catalyst has design centers in both Silicon Valley and Eastern Europe, TannerÕs flexible network licensing model enables them to make maximum use of their tooling; in the evening when the California Design GroupÕs activities are starting to wind down, their European Design Center can start to ramp up their activities using the internationally networked licenses. Also their design review process is more productive since information can be shared between the design centers in real time.
"Tanner EDA provides exceptional power and functionality for our EDA tool dollar, but the value proposition for Tanner tools goes way beyond the mere price of the licensing," said Sakhuja. "Since the entire tool suite runs very efficiently on a standard 'WintelÕ platform, we have infrastructure and maintenance costs that are a fraction of that required by a UNIX or Linux network. Then when you figure in the short learning curve due to the toolsÕ ease of use and the convenience of portability afforded by the use of laptop computers, the overall cost of ownership benefits become quite compelling."
Specific product features important to Sakhuja and the Catalyst team include:
Since Catalyst has just completed a major new tooling deal with HiPer Silicon, they clearly feel confident that Tanner EDA will be able to provide the design capabilities they need to get the job done far into the future. Said Sakhuja, "Tanner has been a great EDA partner for us, and we tend to stick with what works."
About Catalyst Semiconductor
Founded in 1985, Catalyst Semiconductor, Inc. is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The Company is a leading supplier of high performance analog/mixed-signal solutions and nonvolatile memory products used in automotive, aircraft, telecommunications, computation, industrial and consumer markets. The Company designs and markets a broad range of analog/mixed-signal products such as White LED Drivers, DC-DC Converters, GPI/O Expanders, Digitally Programmable Potentiometers (DPP(TM)), Microcontroller Supervisory circuits and other analog/mixed-signal products. Programmable products include Serial and Parallel EEPROMs with I2C, SPI and Microwire interfaces, as well as NVRAM and low density Flash Memories. Typical applications include LCD displays, digital cameras, cell phones, automotive instrumentation, modems, wireless LANs, network cards, DIMM modules, digital satellite box receivers, set-top boxes and Internet routers. Catalyst's Quality Management System is ISO 9001:2000 certified. For additional information about Catalyst Semiconductor, visit our website at: www.catalyst-semiconductor.com.
About Tanner EDA
Tanner EDA is the worldwide leader in tools for analog/mixed signal ICs and MEMS design on the Windows platform. Headquartered in Pasadena, CA, but with sales offices worldwide, Tanner EDA develops design capture, simulation, layout and verification software for analog and mixed signal ICs used in RF, optoelectronic, biomedical, power management and other diverse applications. Tanner EDAÕs flagship products HiPer Verify, L-Edit Pro and T-Spice Pro provide a complete high performance design flow including schematic entry, waveform probing, full-custom layout editing, place and route, LVS and DRC verification, netlist extraction and circuit simulation. Founded in 1988, Tanner EDA is a division of privately held Tanner Research, Inc., and can be found on the World Wide Web at www.tanner.com/eda.