CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is relying on Cadence Design Systems to create and maintain design environments for internal design teams as well as for design teams in a number of collaborating physics institutes throughout Europe and the United States. The company helps CERN by leveraging the Cadence® Services teams and the organization’s pre-existing solution components to create and maintain design environments focused on CERN’s requirements. Key requirements include automating/developing and managing CERN’s analog/mixed-signal design flow, automating the digital flow, process design kit (PDK) development and maintenance, support and training.
One of the key elements that Cadence Services delivered were the new releases of CERN’s IBM-based PDK that are also used by its partners, as well as the delivery of a specific CERN methodology kit, which addresses the analog/mixed-signal flow and its challenges.
“We were in the position to create a method to manage multiple designs from multiple design groups that collaborate with us,” said Alessandro Marchioro, Manager of the Microelectronics Group at CERN. “It is an immense task and very time consuming if you do not have a functional method in place. We turned to Cadence and were surprised that the offering of the Cadence Services group was exactly what we were looking for. To outsource the creating and maintaining of the design environment has saved us a lot of time and resources. We are very pleased with the work and support provided by the Cadence Services team, which has become a member of our own team.”
“The number of successful design submissions from CERN and our collaborating institutes has tripled in the last two years, reflecting the effect of Cadence Services on the designers’ productivity,” said Kostas Kloukinas, Microelectronics Engineer at CERN. “Streamlined design methodology, customized training courses and ad-hoc design services have boosted productivity of the CERN microelectronics CAD support team.”
