Mix Analog and Digital design verification??

[always@smart]

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me how usually you do verification for the design has mix analog and digital blocks? Any tools can do that?

Regards,
Always@smart

 

[linuxluo]

hi,
first ,I am not famaliar with analog design, and I just heard someone else to say that ultrasim or hsim is suit for mix simulation.

 

[sunjimmy]

Hi,

Usually we verify the analog and digital blocks individually with Hspice and NC-Sim. After that, we run full chip verification via Hsim in transistor level with selected minimum test patterns to verify the interconnection and functionality.

Hope it helps : )

 

[hgz]

Hi,
I use VCS+NANOSIM run mix mode simualtion , I think it can fit your request.

Bgs!
hgz

 

[rose_song]

This is document about VCS.

 

[crystal]

First, the analog and digital portions are verified individually. For example, using HSpice for analog and VCS for digital. Once this is done, integration for mixed signals verification is done.
I use Nanosim for mixed-signal verification.

 

[always@smart]

Hi crystal and all,

To run mix-signal simulation with nanosim, what type of analog and digital design files to be used? i.e verilog netlist, h-spice netlist, GDSII, or something else.

Do you need testbench for digital portion?




always@smart

 

[okguy]

I use the way as SunJimmy.
First, complete check of analog with hspice in each corners with proper accuracy, and Digital with NCsim several testbench.
Then, for mixed analog+digital integration, I make a toplevel transistor netlist and simulate it with hsim (low accuracy) with a very reduced functionnal test bench in spice format. Maybe a verilog test bench can be done. Here I only check that interconnection is good and work as I expect.

 

[hgz]

Hi,

To run MIX mode simulation, Analog block you can use transistor level netist or Verilog-A , and it will be simulated by nanosim ,and digital block you can use verilog ,it will be simulated by vcs.

BGS!

 

[llrry]

oh, my god.
I never try to simulate my digital disign with HSPICE,
and I can not even image it.
Is it feasible?

 

[always@smart]

Hi all,

I'm quite confuse with the tools, can anyone tell me what are the differences among nanosim, hsim and ultrasim?

alwys@smart

 

[sunjimmy]

Basically, Nanosim, hsim and Ultrasim are all FAST transistor-level simulator. Their purpose is to simulate your circuit as fast as possible. Both Nanosim and hsim are popular in the current EDA market. It's hard to tell which one is better. Ultrasim from Cadence is a new comer in this segment. Still don't know its capability and performance. Maybe someone can share his experience with us : )

 

[CatKing]

IMHO, there are still no good verification tool for mixed signal designs, vcs+nanosim or ams(eldo/mach+modelsim) are not good enough to handle complex mixed signal designs.

 

[always@smart]

IMHO, there are still no good verification tool for mixed signal designs, vcs+nanosim or ams(eldo/mach+modelsim) are not good enough to handle complex mixed signal designs.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Catking and all,

So what is the combination are good enough for mixed signal design verification? Does it exist in the market?

If no, can anyone tell me a good combination tools which is fast enaugh to run mix analog and digital design verification?

 

[zyphor]

It depends on your design size.

If your chip is much big, you must do some trade-off job on time & accuracy, Nanosim & vcs are good choice , but for D/A interface you still need to do post layout Spice simulation.

 

[vasu_mahada]

hi,
if its big chip try to scale down !
if u want more information please send the layout
bye
vasu

 

[ic_design]

ADMS is a very goog tool for mix-simulation. but it is very slow. Now I am using Hsim and verilog-xl, this is more fast.

 

[crystal]

Hi always@smart,

To run mixed-signal simulation with Nanosim, it accepts SPICE file and Verilog. One thing to note, it only accepts Verilog as top-level.
So, your testbench would be Verilog as well.

Apparently, the 'doughnut' style of simulation is coming out soon... waiting for it.

 

[obrian]

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me how usually you do verification for the design has mix analog and digital blocks? Any tools can do that?

Regards,
Always@smart

Try ADiT for mix analog and digital design verification.
ADiT-VPI will hook ADiT to your favorite digital simulator (VCS, NC-Sim, Modelsim) and you can do co-simulation. If you don't have a digital simulator, then you can use ADiT-HDL and ADiT to do mixed-signal verification. It is easy to set up and I have found many issues between A/D and D/A part of my design.. =p

 

[skymusic]

ADMS is a good tools for Mix-signal simulation. It contain modelsim, eldo, eldoRF and Mach. The attached file is datasheet for ADMS.