Cadence Design Systems Inc. announced that Kandou Bus has fully tested and characterized a 28nm high-speed SerDes PHY IP design named, "Glasswing," that was implemented using the Cadence® mixed-signal signoff flow. Silicon results confirm that the design can deliver up to 25Gbps per data bus bit, enabling a throughput of 125Gbps over the interface. These specs were achieved while Kandou also reduced dynamic power by 3-5X.
To meet strict timing and power specifications for this advanced analog/mixed-signal design, Kandou used the OpenAccess-based Cadence Virtuoso® Digital Signoff Timing Solution, which is integrated with the Tempus Timing Signoff Solution to provide timing signoff accuracy. In addition, Kandou used the Virtuoso Digital Signoff Power Solution, which is integrated with the Voltus IC Power Integrity Solution and the Voltus-Fi Custom Power Integrity Solution to provide power signoff accuracy. The Quantus QRC Extraction Solution and the Spectre® Accelerated Parallel Simulator (APS) provided Kandou with a foundry-certified, silicon-accurate, analog/mixed-signal signoff solution.
Using Cadence's advanced mixed-signal signoff solution, Kandou achieved timing and power results that correlated within 1% of silicon. The Cadence tools also eliminated the need for further silicon debugging and allowed Kandou to produce a reliable design that yielded a transmission bit error rate (BER) under 1E-15. Kandou was able to achieve their aggressive data throughput goals while reducing power consumption when compared with a traditional, standard DDR3 interface.