LOS ALTOS, California, July 5, 2023 -- True Circuits, Inc. (TCI), a leading provider of analog and mixed-signal intellectual property (IP) for the semiconductor, systems and electronics industries announced today the availability of a beta test for its powerful simulation and design environment called JSPICE™ in advance of a full commercial release. JSPICE has been under continuous development and use by True Circuits for over 25 years to create complex analog and digital circuits and is the basis for the world-class timing and DDR PHY IP that have made True Circuits an industry leading IP company. JSPICE has allowed True Circuits to manage every aspect of the definition, design, characterization, optimization and testing processes in a standardized, centralized and repeatable way. As a way of giving back to the global design community, JSPICE is now available for beta testing to a select group of users in preparation for a full commercial release.
"TCI has long benefited from this powerful environment which allowed a small design team to simultaneously support a growing family of mixed-signal IP blocks in over 100 different IC processes from 250nm to 4nm", said John Maneatis, President of True Circuits, Inc. "While reflecting on the 25th anniversary of our company and all we have accomplished, what stood out was how fundamentally important the JSPICE environment has been. It only seemed fitting that we finally share this incredible enabler with fellow designers looking for an edge in their ever more challenging work. JSPICE makes it easy to describe complex circuit structures and rapidly build intuition with quick and complete characterizations. Once people start using it, they will never want to work without it.”
About JSPICE™
JSPICE is a powerful simulation and design environment that greatly simplifies and expedites the process of designing and characterizing complex analog and digital circuits by dramatically facilitating and enhancing the process of running simulations and interpreting their results. It provides extended input preprocessing, timing analysis, mixed-mode simulation, generalized waveform analysis, parametric simulation sweeps and optimization, parallel simulation job control, network process and cloud management, and data reduction and output processing. Characterization flows allow users to encapsulate all information needed to automatically and fully characterize a design and even generate reports. JSPICE also provides a powerful mechanism for schematic-based electrical checks for use by users who want all of the advanced features of JSPICE, but with a simplified workflow. While JSPICE includes a core SPICE simulator with some features facilitated by the JSPICE preprocessor, it can work with any SPICE simulator.
JSPICE makes it easy to express complicated circuits, run a large set of simulations in parallel, perform complex waveform analysis and reduce the results to a form easily understandable by the user, all leading to very rapid turnaround of circuit characterizations. As such, it enables the user to quickly and easily close the loop on the design process. The user can iterate through design changes every few minutes after viewing complete characterization of the circuit rerun after each design change, allowing users to gain insight into the operation of a circuit in less than an hour. The short period of time between iterations allows the user to gain an unprecedented level of insight into the operation of the circuit so that the design can be completed in a matter of hours rather than days.
Waveform analysis using JSPICE can be performed on waveform data from new simulations as well as those that have already been run. The waveform analysis program is also coupled with a powerful parametric sweep and optimization engine that is capable of running simulation jobs individually or in parallel through one of several process servers, including LSF. The process server included with JSPICE allows users to run single simulations or thousands in parallel with no additional effort. It enables the use of local servers as well as seamless and dynamic expansion to cloud-based servers (AWS™, Azure™, Google Cloud™), with the ability to manage millions of servers and a ridiculously high job processing bandwidth of over 200,000 jobs per second.
For more information about JSPICE, visit www.truecircuits.com/jspice.html.
JSPICE™ at the 60th Design Automation Conference
True Circuits will showcase the JSPICE simulation and design environment at the 60th Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco, CA from July 10 to 12, 2023 at Moscone Convention Center, West Hall, Booth #1335. DAC attendees will be offered daily presentations and demos highlighting the features and uses of this powerful design platform. The JSPICE presentation schedule is as follows:
Monday July 10, 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM
Tuesday July 11, 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM
Wednesday July 12, 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM
DAC attendees can register for a JSPICE presentation day and time and also become eligible for a prize at www.truecircuits.com/jspice_dac2023_pres.html.
For those DAC attendees who would like a private JSPICE demo, please register at www.truecircuits.com/jspice_dac2023_demo.html.
JSPICE™ Beta Test
JSPICE is now available for beta testing to a select group of users in preparation for a full commercial release. Interested users, whether individuals, students or employees of companies, can submit a beta test application at www.truecircuits.com/jspice_beta.html. The application process will ask users to agree to the terms of the beta testing program, including providing periodic feedback and participating in user forums. Initially a small set of users will be selected by True Circuits, at its sole discretion, to begin beta testing for a selected period of time. This set will be expanded later. Approved users will be provided the JSPICE software suite, user guidelines, related documentation and a True Circuits point of contact for user support and feedback.
About True Circuits Analog PLLs and DLLs
True Circuits offers a complete family of standardized and silicon-proven general purpose, clock generator, deskew, spread spectrum, IoT and Ultra PLLs, and multi-slave and multi-phase DLLs that spans nearly all performance points and features typically requested by ASIC, FPGA and SoC designers. These high quality, low-jitter PLL and DLL hard macros are suited to a wide variety of interface standards and chip applications. They are pin-programmable, highly process tolerant and reusable. They are also easy to integrate and are fully supported, so customers can reduce both design and silicon risks.
True Circuits PLLs support a wide range of frequencies, multiplication factors and functions over which they deliver optimal performance, avoiding the cost and complexity of licensing multiple point-solution PLLs or fiddling with digital PLLs. TCI’s PLLs are available with ring-oscillator and LC-tank architectures, fractional-N division and frequency spreading for EMI reduction. TCI's DLLs are available in multi-slave and multi-phase versions and different sizes and form factors. They delay a set of signals by precise and adjustable fractions of a reference clock cycle independent of voltage and temperature and are ideal for high-speed DDR and ONFI interface applications. Customized PLL and DLL solutions are also available for specialized chip applications.
True Circuits PLLs and DLLs are available for immediate customer delivery in TSMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and UMC processes from 180nm to 4nm. For more information about True Circuits IP products, visit www.truecircuits.com/tci_technology.html and www.truecircuits.com/product_matrix.html.
About True Circuits Synthesizable PLLs and DLLs
The synthesizable Precision PLL generates multiple precision clocks supporting any modulation scheme from almost DC to 10GHz. The outputs can be independently dynamically programmed cycle-by-cycle to any clock period and the clock frequency can be a precise ratio of floating point numbers times the reference frequency. The integrated phase noise is better than 500ps RMS. It is ideal for SerDes, processor and DVFS applications.
The synthesizable micro PLL is a small synthesizable general-purpose PLL that multiplies the reference clock by any integer or fractional-N value from 1 to 500K. It supports reference clock frequencies as low as 32KHz and output frequencies as high as 3GHz. It can stay locked to the reference clock while it changes over a 10:1 frequency range. Because it is synthesizable, it can support spreading as well as other modulation profiles. It is relatively low power, very fast locking and can quickly restart from a sleep mode.
The synthesizable micro DLL is a small synthesizable DLL with a master and multiple slaves topology. It can support reference frequencies typically in the range of 500MHz to 3GHz and track reference changes over an 8:1 frequency range while providing 9-bit accuracy in slave delay programming. Slave delays can be changed glitch free and the DLL can quickly restart from a sleep mode. It has a very small zero code offset that can be precisely cancelled.
About True Circuits DDR PHYs
The DDR PHY is a high-performance, scalable system using a radically new architecture that continuously and automatically adjusts each pin individually, correcting skew within byte lanes. This state-of-the-art tuning acts independently on each pin, data phase and chip select value. Read gate and data eye timing are also continuously adjusted. Fully automatic training is managed by a light weight special purpose processor and includes multi-cycle write leveling and read gate training and also read/write data eye training, including PHY Vref and DRAM Vref settings.
The PHY employs a localized and optimized PHY-to-memory controller interface to ease timing closure. The circuitry in each pin is able to measure the data eye and jitter, and calculate flight delays. The PHY also includes a full speed read/write BIST, which tests the complete read and write paths of every pin simultaneously with pseudo-random data.
Remarkable physical flexibility allows the PHY to adapt to each customer's die floorplan and package constraints, yet is verified and delivered as a unit for easy timing closure with no assembly required. The PHY supports LPDDR5, DDR4, LPDDR4, DDR3 and LPDDR3, and is DFI 5.1 compliant. When combined with an appropriate DDR memory controller, a complete and fully-automatic DDR system is realized.
The True Circuits DDR PHY is silicon proven and immediately available for customer delivery in TSMC's 28/22nm HPC/HPC+ processes. The PHY is also available upon request in a variety of TSMC processes from 40nm to 4nm. Interested customers can obtain more product information on the web at www.truecircuits.com/ddr_phy.html or by contacting True Circuits at Email Contact.
About True Circuits
True Circuits develops and markets a broad range of industry leading PLLs, DLLs and DDR PHY hard macros for ICs for the semiconductor, systems and electronics industries. TCI's robust state-of-the-art circuits, methodical and proven design strategy, and close association with the world's leading foundries, IDMs, and design services companies allow the company to quickly and reliably create new and innovative designs in a variety of advanced process technologies. Over the last 25 years, True Circuits has distinguished itself as the technology leader in the timing IP space, and its PLLs and DLLs are used extensively around the world in its customers' products with production volumes well into the billions.
True Circuits is headquartered at 4300 El Camino Real, Suite 200, Los Altos, California 94022 and can be found on the web at www.truecircuits.com. Product inquiries can be made by calling the company directly at (650) 949-3400 or via e-mail at Email Contact.
Press Contact: Kimberly Toan, True Circuits, Inc., (650) 949-3400, Ext. 3404, Email Contact.
Acronyms and definitions:
ASIC Application Specific IC
IoT Internet of Things
DLL Delay-Locked Loop
IP Intellectual Property
DDR Double Data Rate
ONFI Open NAND Flash Interface
FPGA Field Programmable Gate Array
PLL Phase-Locked Loop
IC Integrated Circuit
SoC System on a Chip
JSPICE is a trademark of True Circuits, Inc.
The Precision PLL is a trademark of True Circuits, Inc.
The micro PLL is a trademark of True Circuits, Inc.
The micro DLL is a trademark of True Circuits, Inc.
The IoT PLL is a trademark of True Circuits, Inc.
The Ultra PLL is a trademark of True Circuits, Inc.
The True Circuits logo is a trademark of True Circuits, Inc.
All other trademarks and tradenames are the property of their respective owners.