Faraday Technology enhances PowerSmart Design Flow to include Sequence's RTL power analysis tool

Faraday Technology, a leading ASIC and IP provider has announced that it has further enhanced the PowerSmart ultra-low power ASIC design flow to include a front-end tool, which allows designers to perform power trade-off and optimization at the RTL level. Sequence Design, a leader in providing advanced power-aware design tools, will be the supply partner of this tool.

Through a collaborative licensing arrangement with Sequence, Faraday USA will bundle the PowerTheater tool suite together with its Faraday Design Kit and make the total package available to its customers. Leveraging Sequence's PowerTheater unique RTL power analysis capability, Faraday's customers will have the ability to evaluate multiple power management architectural options at the RTL stage where the impact of power savings is highest. Once the designers are satisfied with the trade-off of performance, area, and power, they can seamlessly migrate those power techniques into the subsequent synthesis and Place & Route stage with Faraday's fully integrated PowerSmart design flow methodology.

"Our partnership with Sequence allows Faraday to help our customers optimize for power at the architectural level, which is a fundamental enhancement. Faraday aims to provide the most efficient silicon-in area, power, and performance-to enable our customers to have the most competitive products in the market," said Dr. George Hwang, Vice President of International Business at Faraday. "The combination of Faraday's advanced ASIC design platform and Sequence's PowerTheater will enable our customers to address the most demanding low-power SoC applications," he continued.

"Sequence and Faraday both believe that power is strategic to the competitiveness of our customers; hence we form a strategic partnership with Faraday to deliver technology for the PowerSmart ultra-low power ASIC design flow," said Vic Kulkarni, Sequence president and CEO. "Faraday is a leader in SoC development from inception to silicon, so our collaboration is natural to deliver a world-class solution."

Faraday's PowerSmart design flow currently comprises of the PowerSlash IP portfolio, Fusion multi-Vth process, PowerSwitch, and PowerCut, which together implement an extensive set of power management utilities such as multiple supply domains, power and clock gating and voltage islands. "By adding Sequence PowerTheater suite to this design flow, Faraday now offers a comprehensive and fully integrated design flow that can optimize power management techniques from RTL to GDS" said Chung Ho, Vice President of ASIC Marketing and Engineering at Faraday USA. "Customers will be able to explore all the power saving techniques available in the Faraday library to the fullest extent, and see the results upfront."

Sequence
Faraday Technology Corporation