Galaxy Custom Designer - Industry Viewpoints 
 

ANALOG BITS   •  CREATIVE CHIPS   •  IMS CHIPS   •  PRIVA TECHNOLOGIES  
•  RENESAS   •  STMICROELECTRONICS   •  TRANSMETA   •  TSMC   •  UBIXUM
•  VIRAGE LOGIC   •  WIPRO   •  GARY SMITH

"In our business we develop custom transistor-level IP for precision clocking and high-speed interconnect and memories so we are highly dependent on the EDA tools we use. Synopsys' entry into the custom design space with Custom Designer is good news for custom IC designers. There is now a viable alternative to implement next-generation designs."

Mahesh Tirupattur
Executive Vice President
Analog Bits, Inc.

"Our market is driven by increasing digital and analog content, time-to-market pressures and the need for unsurpassed product quality and reliability, and that is a challenge for any semiconductor manufacturer. Key to our success is our choice of Synopsys' Galaxy™ Design Platform with Custom Designer. This complete digital and custom design flow lets us meet the challenges of our customer-driven designs."

Dr. Lutz Porombka
Managing Director
Creative Chips, Inc.

"The introduction of Custom Designer as part of the Galaxy Design Platform provides a complete cell-based and custom design capability that we are currently deploying on our next-generation HDRC® sensor array design. Custom Designer was easy to adopt, and offers significant productivity improvements over other solutions."

Wolfram Klingler
Senior Manager, IC Design Tools
IMS Chips

"Our customers expect timely delivery and the utmost reliability from our advanced authentication security products. The smooth conversion of our mixed-signal security IP to Custom Designer, its inherent ease-of-use, and its intuitive interface enabled us to significantly reduce design iteration time and thus increase quality. We expect using Custom Designer for our future designs to greatly enhance our design productivity."

Jeff Berkman
Chief Technology Officer
Priva Technologies

"We are pleased to see that Synopsys has entered the custom design market. Given Synopsys' history of technological innovation we will be watching with interest as they develop solutions to solve the tough challenges facing custom designers today."

Hisaharu Miwa
General Manager, Design Technology Division, LSI Product Technology Unit
Renesas Technology Corp

"The growing analog content and complexity of systems-on-a-chip (SoCs) using 45-nm and 40-nm technology today, moving soon to 28-nm and 22-nm technology, requires an integrated, full-featured analog and digital implementation solution, and strong interoperability among all the key EDA ingredients, allowing full support of legacy analog IP. We are very pleased that Synopsys' Custom Designer plans to provide all the features that advanced SoC designers are looking for, along with native OpenAccess support, which should allow smooth plug-and-play in our custom design environment, and quick migration for our legacy IP."

Philippe Magarshack
Group Vice President, Technology R&D
STMicroelectronics

"Synopsys' MSIP group was the first early adopter of Custom Designer and over a period of several months we have exercised the tool on a number of our designs. It performs well and we will be transitioning to Custom Designer for new IP products."

Anwar Awad
Vice President, Engineering
Synopsys Mixed-signal IP Group

"After seeing Custom Designer at DAC we were interested because of its support for OpenAccess and IPL. We took the opportunity to evaluate it for our next 45-nanometer test chip. We read in our legacy data and got working with it very quickly. We found the interface to be familiar and intuitive with many powerful built-in routines. We think Synopsys has developed an exciting tool and look forward to its further development."

Dan Hillman
Vice President, Engineering
Transmeta

"Galaxy Custom Designer has an open architecture that natively supports interoperable PDKs which are an integral part of our Open Innovation Platform™, helping designers innovate in analog and full-custom design. We are collaborating with Synopsys to develop the industry's first interoperable PDK in 65 nanometer, a single PDK that supports multiple environments, including the latest innovations such as Custom Designer. We continue to work with Synopsys and the Interoperable PDK Library (IPL) Alliance to accelerate the deployment and adoption of interoperable PDK across the industry."

Dr. Fu-Chieh Hsu
Vice President, Design and Technology Platform
TSMC

"Our design team became immediately productive using the Custom Designer layout editor. Custom Designer is modern, very well designed and integrates flawlessly with HSPICE, Hercules and Star-RCXT. We were able to generate, verify and tapeout within 1 week of using the tool."

Keith Fife
Cofounder
Ubixum, Inc.

"As the semiconductor industry's trusted IP partner and an integral part of the SoC design ecosystem, Virage Logic supports Synopysys' efforts to bring open, interoperable EDA products to market. Synopsys' decision to expand their offering to include a complete full-custom IC design solution should enable users to improve overall design productivity."

Brani Buric
Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Partnerships
Virage Logic, Inc.

"This is an excellent move by Synopsys into the custom design market. The environment looks very impressive, demonstrating high quality, ease-of-use and enhanced productivity for custom IC designers."

Anand Valavi
Group Head, Manager, Analog Mixed Signal Group
Wipro

"With Custom Designer you are immediately more productive, especially if you are familiar with the old-school layout systems. There is virtually no learning curve and it's packed with lots of time-saving features like on-canvas editing."

Andrew Bosik
Senior Analog Mask Designer

"With Custom Designer, mask designers can be up and running immediately. There are no annoying pop-ups and the menus are simple and easy to use."

Paul Osuna
Senior Mask Design Specialist

"Now that Cadence has lost their franchise position, the market is wide open. Synopsys' toolset has a good chance at grabbing a leading position in this market."

Gary Smith
Gary Smith EDA