Agilent Technologies Inc. announced that Toshiba Semiconductor Co. has selected Agilent’s GoldenGate EDA software for its RFIC design and evaluation.

Accurate post-layout simulation and evaluation of an entire transceiver, including parasitics, is very difficult to perform with today’s widely used time-domain simulation tools. Early evaluation is increasingly important, however, because when problems are detected after making a prototype, design teams waste precious time and money on design and prototype re-spins. To address this issue, Toshiba Semiconductor needed new EDA software that is fast enough for its design cycles. It chose Agilent’s GoldenGate.

“It is very difficult to simulate large-scale circuits, such as direct conversion modulator/demodulators with local oscillators, using the SPICE time-domain simulator,” said Tamotsu Hiwatashi, group manager of the planning department, System LSI Division of Toshiba Semiconductor. “We needed a frequency-domain simulator. We chose GoldenGate because in addition to its superior convergence, it works faster than other frequency-domain simulation tools.”

Agilent’s GoldenGate software is an advanced simulation and analysis solution for integrated RF circuit design. Its unique simulation algorithms are optimized for the challenging demands of today’s complex RF circuit design, enabling full characterization of complete transceivers prior to tape-out. To ensure device manufacturability and reduce design spins, GoldenGate takes advantage of both frequency-domain and time-domain simulation capabilities to perform necessary analyses on today’s RF devices.

“We are pleased Toshiba Semiconductor has chosen GoldenGate for its RFIC design and evaluation,” said Marc Petersen, product marketing manager with Agilent’s EEsof EDA division. “By importing modulated signals from Agilent ADS Ptolemy, GoldenGate can reduce the time required to simulate circuits based on today’s communication standards. We will continue to work closely with Toshiba’s design engineers to help them optimize their design environment with Agilent EDA software.”