CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
2 November 2007
Company News
IPL Initiative Opens Technical Working Groups to Industry Participation
Interoperable PCell Libraries (IPL) initiative announces an open invitation to leading semiconductor companies, foundries, integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and EDA companies to join IPL's three newest technical working groups. The groups seek participants to contribute to standards on Properties and Parameters, PCells and Constraints. The IPL initiative, first formed in April of this year to address PCell interoperability issues, has expanded its charters to address broader interoperability issues with foundry process design kits (PDK) and design flows.
Standardization of PDKs and design flows benefits analog and custom IC designers by removing bottlenecks in multiple-vendor flows. Currently, each foundry is creating specialized PDKs for different EDA vendors and tools. Without standardization, analog design houses are limited by incompatible non-extended kits from foundries and limited support for new, advanced tools. The result is increased cost, extended schedules, redundant efforts and impeded innovation.
The companies involved in the technical working groups are Applied Wave Research (AWR), Ciranova, JEDAT, Magma, Silicon Canvas, Silicon Navigator and Synopsys. All companies involved are members of the IPL initiative. Other companies have been invited to participate. The IPL initiative is now actively looking for knowledgeable individuals to participate in the working groups.
"An open and interoperable PDK is important for maintaining design accuracy which is a commitment and constant pursuit by TSMC" said Kuo Wu, deputy director of Design Service Marketing, TSMC. "A potential industry standard like this promotes reuse and reduces PDK development cost. It also promotes innovation in analog and full custom design, improves productivity and efficiency, and makes analog design flow interoperability a reality."
"The level of cooperation, support and progress from the IPL initiative members has been outstanding," says Rich Goldman, vice president of Strategic Market Development at Synopsys. "New IPL initiative members can help accelerate progress and usher in a new era of analog and custom design productivity enabled through interoperability."
The IPL initiative will present an update of the working groups' progress at the 11th OpenAccess Conference on November 5th. These updates were also presented at the 20th Synopsys EDA Interoperability Developers' Forum on October 25th. Any party interested in participating in the IPL working groups should contact Jingwen Yuan, Strategic Alliance Manager, Synopsys, Inc. at jingwen@synopsys.com .
For more information about the IPL Initiative, please visit: http://www.iplnow.com/
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