EDA
System
IP
SolvNetPlus
Training & Education
Precision Timing Analysis for High-Frequency Designs
Synopsys PrimeClock is the latest innovation in the Synopsys PrimeTime family of products, purpose-built to address the increasing challenges of clock jitter and structural integrity in today’s high-frequency semiconductor designs. As chip frequencies climb beyond 2GHz and into the 4-5GHz range, even the smallest margins in clock jitter can have a significant impact on design performance and yield. PrimeClock empowers design teams to scientifically analyze, optimize, and recover performance margins that were previously unattainable with conventional methods.
The Challenge
Modern, high-speed designs—common in mobile CPUs, high-performance computing (HPC), and advanced automotive applications—are pushing the limits of clock frequency and operating at ever-lower voltages. Existing approaches to managing clock jitter and integrity, such as setting margins based on historical data or performing limited SPICE simulations, fall short when applied to billion-instance designs. This leaves teams without a practical, scalable solution to quantify and optimize clock network performance.
Key Benefits
PrimeClock delivers a breakthrough approach to timing analysis by:
- Quantifying Clock Jitter: Provides detailed measurements of clock jitter across the entire chip or at specific points in the design, enabling users to update constraints and recover valuable frequency margins.
- Optimizing Clock Network Integrity: Evaluates rail-to-rail swings and duty cycles, detecting dead pulses and timing escapes to improve structural reliability and overall circuit yield.
- Advanced Analysis Flows: Integrates seamlessly as an extension of PrimeTime, leveraging session databases and efficient partitioning for full-chip, subsystem, or block-level analysis.
- Machine Learning-Driven Coverage: Uses ML models to expand analysis coverage from a handful of cycles to thousands, overcoming traditional compute limitations.
- Aging and Stress Simulation: Simulates circuit behavior under various aging and stress conditions, helping users anticipate long-term performance degradation.
- Resource Efficiency: Delivers up to 100x–1000x speed improvements over traditional SPICE, and 2x–5x faster than niche competitive tools, with optimal compute usage thanks to advanced pruning and modeling technology.
- Trusted Foundations: Built upon foundry-certified, customer-trusted PrimeTime and PrimeSim tools.