Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

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AH Ling

Joined: 04 Aug 2005
Posts: 10

04 Aug 2005 3:24 leonardo +spectrum +gate limit

Can anyone share experience or views of Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum tool compare to Synopsis Design Compiler & Design Vision when it comes to ASIC synthesis? Currently, I am engaged with ASIC projects that has only 10k-50k gates count only.

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au_sun

Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 148
Helped: 10

04 Aug 2005 7:16 Re: Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

i can say that for FPGA synthesis Leonardo is one of the best solution,

when it come to ASIC, Design compiler is the BEST one compared to others,

leonardo is good synthesis tool but when compared to design compiler there is a big difference.

ikru26

Joined: 01 Feb 2005
Posts: 112
Location: INDIA

04 Aug 2005 9:47 Re: Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

DC or design compiler ios one of the best tool when u compare with leonardo spectrum..

yes one of my friend previously told was exactly correct..when u r in FPGA domain u can go for synplicity or leonardo but for asic the best one is DC.

i am using leonardo

What I like about Leonardo is the large number of user variables that can be set to control the synthesis via the variable editor. So, I can synthesize a tough module with max_fanout = 4, put a note on it, and synthesize the rest of the design with max_fanout 16. I can analyse the results easily. I didn't find that in Synplicity.

bkat

Joined: 04 Dec 2003
Posts: 57

22 Aug 2005 18:28 Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

here
http://www.51eda.com

gliss

Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 670
Helped: 61
Location: Boston

23 Aug 2005 0:52 Re: Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

ikru26,
fan-out is a specifiable parameter in the Synplicity tools. Check your documentation.
bkat,
what is the point of that site? It is all in chinese.

AH Ling

Joined: 04 Aug 2005
Posts: 10

23 Aug 2005 10:05 Re: Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

according to a senior application engineer from Mentor Graphic at US, Leonardo Spectrum could do ASIC synthesis similar to Synopsys. Limitation is it only supports 500K gates count. another concern is availability of foundry library...

so, any views or experiences to share about LEonardo spectrum?

eeeraghu

Joined: 03 Jun 2005
Posts: 215
Helped: 17

23 Aug 2005 13:04 Re: Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

Hi,

DC is the best, accurate, fast when u r using for ASIC synthesis, For FPGA synthesis leonardo Spectrum is best, easy and most of all if u r going for generalized comparision between FPGA then we use Leonardo, as all the fpga tools such as xilinx has its own inbuilt XST tool, Altera's qu(at)rtus has synplicity, leonardo, and other tools in built and even Actel also has this facility.

gliss

Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 670
Helped: 61
Location: Boston

24 Aug 2005 21:58 Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

I'm not sure which is better: Synplicity or LeonardoSpectrum. I don't think there is an agreed on answer. Personally, I think Synplicity is better. But Mentor is good too.

omara007

Joined: 06 Jan 2003
Posts: 1283
Helped: 39
Location: Dubai

25 Aug 2005 3:02 Re: Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

I heard that Leonardo is going far from being an industry standard .. in other words, very little amount of companies are taping out a design that has been synthesized by leonardo .. dunno whethere this is right or wrong cuz we use DC in my company .. but I used to use Leonardo when I was still in the university ..

but what about the ceiling of 500k gate ? .. can't Leonardo synthesize for a great no. of gates !!!!!

gliss

Joined: 22 Apr 2005
Posts: 670
Helped: 61
Location: Boston

25 Aug 2005 21:03 Re: Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

omara007 wrote:

but what about the ceiling of 500k gate ? .. can't Leonardo synthesize for a great no. of gates !!!!!

At school there is a gate limit on LeonardoSpectrum, but I think that is due to our license type, and not some intrinsic property of the tool.

luancao

Joined: 02 Aug 2005
Posts: 71
Helped: 5

25 Aug 2005 21:25 Mentor Graphic Leonardo Spectrum

It is hard to simply say which one is "good"...

Usually if your design is not the extreme case it is hard to evaluate the performance of the tool simply by better...

But in the real design enviroment, you always know which one is "better" since the design flow will not be changed easily in your enviroment. You could evaluate by if it could be used seamlessly to other tools available in your design enviroment. It is impossible for you to change all other tools for a single tool... Sad