The Microwave Division of Siemens Italy Selects Atrenta's SpyGlass to Implement Design Reuse and Best Practices Policy

SpyGlass is central for an efficient re-use methodology

SAN JOSE, CA, July 15, 2002 -- Atrenta(TM) Inc., the Predictive Analysis company, announced that Microwave Networks, a division of Siemens ICN SpA, an Italian branch of SIEMENS AG, responsible for development, manufacturing and marketing of Microwave Radio Systems, selected Atrenta’s SpyGlass(TM) predictive analyzer to identify critical problems early in the design cycle and implement an effective design-for-reuse and best practices strategy. SpyGlass’ unique look-ahead capability lets Siemens’ engineers check for complex design errors and comply with downstream issues at the RTL, before lengthy simulation and synthesis runs, thereby saving months of re-coding, re-synthesis and re-verification cycles. Designers are also able to address reuse issues at the RTL where they are most comfortable working and easily leverage intellectual property to reduce design and schedule risks.

“SpyGlass is central to our plans for an efficient re-use methodology,” said Maurizio Montefiori, ASIC Development Manager at Siemens Microwave Networks. “SpyGlass’ powerful customization capability has enabled us to rapidly develop and deploy internal coding guidelines throughout our design groups, which help eliminate cumbersome reuse and best-practice documentation and replace it with an automated environment.”

“SpyGlass’ unique look-ahead capability enables Siemens Microwave Networks to address reuse considerations at the RT level where it is most valuable. This helps Siemens meet its competitive challenges by enabling a more effective design reuse strategy,” stated Ghulam Nurie, senior vice president of marketing and business development at Atrenta. “SpyGlass allows its users to efficiently utilize pre-packaged, industry-developed reuse practices as well as create new proprietary and customized approaches that address reuse and a broad range of best design practices at the same time.”

About SpyGlass

SpyGlass employs a unique predictive analysis technique that looks at the structure of the design and finds downstream problems that are not detectable by other methods including other rule checkers, simulators and formal verifiers. Atrenta has developed an advanced technology that uses fast synthesis to create a gate-level representation so true structural analysis can be performed during the RTL design phase. This enables SpyGlass to detect at the RT level very complex design problems such as clock synchronization, tri-state bus decoding, combinational loops, logic cone depth, and read-before-write in sequential circuits. Design errors are reported back to the original RTL and a graphical debugging environment helps in quick problem isolation.

SpyGlass provides a powerful environment where reuse and best practices can be captured, consolidated and used to analyze a design. A broad collection of configurable policies is available with SpyGlass in both VHDL and Verilog. These policies include over 2500 rules covering coding style, design practices, DFT, OpenMORE and other reuse-focused rules. These can be extended with custom policies, which can be easily developed in either PERL or C. Direct access to internal SpyGlass data structures is provided through the same SpyGlass API that is used by Atrenta’s internal developers and partners. This enables access both to RT-level and post-synthesis gate structures to facilitate the development of highly sophisticated rules that can be used in a high performance interactive environment. SpyGlass also provides sample policies that provide users a way to jump-start their customization efforts.

About Atrenta

Atrenta offers a new approach in accelerating the design of complex ASICs, FPGAs, and SoCs through predictive analysis. Its SpyGlass software is the first tool that performs detailed structural analysis on register-transfer-level Verilog and VHDL code in order to check for complex problems, which include coding styles, RTL-handoff, design re-use, clock/reset requirements, and much more. Its breakthrough and innovative “look-ahead” capability incorporates a fast-synthesis engine, logic evaluator, and testability technologies. Atrenta has over forty-five customers, such as Agere, Agilent, Apple, ARM, Canon, Compaq, Fujitsu, Hitachi, LSI Logic, Motorola, National Semiconductor, NCR, Nortel and Olympus, who are using SpyGlass to achieve shorter overall design cycles, increased design productivity and lower costs. Atrenta is headquartered in San Jose, California, with European headquarters in Swindon, England, a research and development center in India, and sales and support distributors in Japan, Taiwan, India and Singapore. For further information, visit the Atrenta website at www.atrenta.com .