flip_flop
Ex Member
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Thanks, Ken!
Let me put a little bit more (just IMHO).
Mentor (Advance MS, Eldo, Eldo-Rf, Modelsim): Advantages: - More mature (more years in business) for AMS - More capabilities (e.g. languages support for VHDL, Verilog, VHDL-AMS, Verilog-A, Verilog-AMS, C - all of them) - Fast simulator (MACHTA) is available (with some accuracy problems, though)
Disadvantages: - Not so good integrated in general design flow - Sometime difficult to use (trickies to run full-chip sims, not perfect signal viewer) - Not all standard VHDL features are present in VHDL-AMS (e.g. records, textio; however pure RTL/gate models in VHDL-AMS behave equivalent to MTI (VHDL or Verilog)) Cadence (AMS-designer, Spectre, Spectre-RF, NC-SIM)
Advantages: - Best integrated design flow (schematics, layout, modeling, signal integrity) - Orientation for integrated mixed signal design (tools cooperation) - Debug and postprocessing capabilities both for digital and analog blocks - Good signal viewer
Disadvantages: - Not very mature (for mixed signal sims) - Sometime difficult to use (especially for full-chip sims) - Still no VHDL-AMS (should be at the end of last year)
My opinon is that both AMS tools are still in a infancy and no matter what vendor you go with, you will still have problems. However, both of them are getting better and mixed signal design teams will migrate to these tools.
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