Mentor joins Nano 2022 R&D program to foster innovation in semiconductor design and verification

November 19, 2020 -- Mentor, a Siemens business, today announced that it has joined Nano 2022 – a strategic private/public program presented by the French Minister of Economics on STMicroelectronics premises and focused on driving innovation for France’s microelectronics industry. As part of the initiative, Mentor will share its expertise and technology in the creation of world-class integrated circuit (IC) design and verification solutions.

Supported by several national and local authorities in France, Nano 2022 is part of the European Commission’s Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) initiative established in 2018 to promote research and innovation for key technology fields. Spearheaded by France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, IPCEI aims to drive innovation in power ICs, sensors, IC energy efficiency, advanced optical equipment and compound materials targeting the automotive, security, Internet of Things (IoT), and space & avionics markets.

Mentor, a Siemens business, brings more than 30 years of leadership and innovation in the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry to the program. The company enables customers to develop better electronics products faster and more cost-effectively with innovative solutions that help engineers conquer design challenges in the increasingly complex worlds of printed circuit board and chip design.

“For more than a decade, STMicroelectronics and Mentor have partnered to drive key advances in design and verification automation for our highly differentiated technology and design platforms,” said Cyril Colin-Madan, deputy director of Technology and Design Platforms for STMicroelectronics. “After highly successful collaborations under the Nano 2012 and Nano 2017 programs, we aim to further advance the state of microelectronics design and manufacturing in Europe under Nano 2022.”

The design and verification of low-power chips, power semiconductors and other advanced circuit architectures requires fast, accurate and high-capacity circuit simulators for pre-layout and post-layout circuits, certified for numerous STMicroelectronics technology platforms (Bulk CMOS, FDSOI, Analog & RF, Embedded Non Volatile, Imaging, BCD) and other technologies. Mentor’s nanometer circuit verification Analog FastSPICE™ Platform and analog-centric Eldo™ software cover the full range of circuit types and technologies involved in the Nano 2022 program.

Another key challenge that the collaboration will address is the characterization of standard cells, I/Os and memories. Characterizing silicon platforms with hundreds of cells and several hundred process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variables can consume thousands of CPUs for weeks, running millions of SPICE simulations and generating billions of values. This bottleneck is a productivity drain for the broader semiconductor industry. With the Solido™ Characterization Software Suite, Mentor provides a machine-learning-powered solution that increases the throughput of library characterization by orders of magnitude, while producing accurate Liberty files and statistical data. It also provides tools and a designer-centric user interface that enable the exhaustive verification of characterized Liberty files. New reinforcement-learning techniques can be developed during the program to advance platform characterization.

“Mentor’s research and industrial partnership with STMicroelectronics has established a long and successful track record of collaboration, resulting in advancements to Mentor’s tools, which in turn deliver immediate value to STMicroelectronics and other customers,”

said Ravi Subramanian, Ph.D., senior vice president, IC Verification Solutions for Mentor. “Mentor is pleased to expand on this successful collaboration with the Nano 2022 program, and we look forward to working with STMicroelectronics to achieve our mutual goals.”

As a leading innovator, Mentor is also deeply embedded in the Grenoble science and micro-/nano-electronics ecosystem through its participation in IRT Nanoelec and the Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence.

Mentor Graphics Corporation, a Siemens business, is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products, consulting services, and award-winning support for the world’s most successful electronic, semiconductor, and systems companies. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. Web site: http://www.mentor.com.