ModelSim Informant - March 2004

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April 30, 2004

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Spotlight

The Mathworks and Mentor Graphics Win EDN Innovation of the Year Award for Link for ModelSim

The MathWorks® and Mentor Graphics® today announced that The MathWorks software tool Link for ModelSim® won the EDN Innovation of the Year Award in the EDA: Design Exploration category. This exclusive awards program honors outstanding electronic products, ranging from integrated circuits to test equipment, and the creative engineers who invent them.

We are pleased that The MathWorks Link for ModelSim co-simulation interface is lauded by our industry peers," said Robert Hum, vice president and general manager, design verification and test division, Mentor Graphics. "Mentor Graphics and The MathWorks are committed to providing designers with an innovative, efficient tool flow to co-simulate, test and verify mixed-system level design descriptions in MATLAB or Simulink with VHDL and Verilog." [more...]

ModelSim Reinstatement Promotion

One of the most cost-effective ways to improve designer productivity at your site is to bring your lapsed ModelSim seats back on current support.

By reinstating support you can upgrade your inactive seats to the most current release and take advantage of the newest functionality. You also get access to all our online SupportNet services, as well as technical support directly from our responsive Customer Applications Engineers.

Release Information

ModelSim 5.8c

5.8 Technical Notes

PSL Quick Guide
ModelSim PSL Assertion Support
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FREE Product Information CD

Partner News

ISSP – the right choice for low- to mid-volume ASIC designs at low NRE cost

Up to now, there have been two main approaches to developing high-complexity custom circuits: cell-based or standard cell ASICs (CB-IC) and – within certain limitations – field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). CB-ICs are capable of delivering the highest performance for optimal area efficiency and lowest power, but have the drawback of relatively high mask cost. FPGAs have the advantage of being programmable, so that mask costs fall away. This is a benefit during the development and system-test phases, because designs can still be modified without significant extra cost. But the aspects of FPGAs that initially seemed so attractive turn out to have serious downsides: the ability to reprogram means higher unit costs, which are caused by a larger area of silicon and a larger and more expensive package to accommodate the greater number of pins required for reprogram and higher power consumption. This situation leaves designers with the often difficult choice between the high unit costs of FPGAs and the high mask costs of CB-ICs. This is where the new concept of “structured ASICs” comes into the calculation. [more...]

Standards Corner

Mentor Graphics IEEE Membership

Mentor Graphics recently announced it has joined the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) as a corporate member to help shape industrial involvement in the development of standards. In the last few years, the IEEE-SA has initiated a program to embrace corporate issues in the development of standards that has traditionally been done by consortia. Since IEEE standards for electronic design automation underpin virtually every digital design done today, corporate input should likewise be part of this process.

Dennis Brophy, Director of Strategic Business Development

The IEEE VHDL and Verilog standards offer a solid base for modern design practice with efficient support of design data interoperability. These standards give you implementation choices and innovative technologies you use in your design methodologies. But those standards have failed to keep pace with the changes in design complexity and have failed to address the crisis in verification. With recent industry surveys that show up to 70% of the design process is spent in verification, it is past time that this issue is addressed. Corporate feedback and participation in the IEEE-SA will allow issues like this to be surfaced and resolved with more timely standards and specifications. Mentor Graphics looks forward to its corporate participation in the IEEE-SA and the benefits it will offer you as we speed the development and deployment of crucial electronic design automation standards.

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