Mentor Graphics ICanalyst Embraced by DENSO for Reuse of Analog Circuit Resources

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ:MENT) today announced that DENSO Corporation has adopted the Mentor^® ICanalyst™ tool, which is an analog cell characterization management tool, that allowed them to substantially reduce datasheet generation work required for reusing existing analog circuit resources, and facilitates efficient reuse of circuit blocks. The ICanalyst tool systematically manages analog cell characterization and helps users create datasheets.

“Datasheet generation is vital to understanding legacy block data when engineers reuse the analog circuit blocks. Traditionally, datasheets must be prepared by summarizing results of temperature, parameter, and corner model simulations. The extremely costly verification and generation processes limit the possibility of circuit reuse and therefore hamper improvement of design efficiency. At DENSO, we automatically collected the simulation result and generated datasheets using ICanalyst which resulted that we are now spending significantly less time and money on such painful datasheet generation,” said Yoshiki Kuwata, DENSO.

With supporting languages such as Perl and Tcl for customizing simulation result data in the datasheet creation flow, the ICanalyst tool enables DENSO engineers to output circuit block datasheets directly in their original format. The ICanalyst tool can also use IBM Platform LSF to run simulations on multiple distributed CPUs, which leads to faster and simplified simulations. Another benefit is achieved by linking the ICanalyst tool to the Mentor^® schematic editor and wave viewer. Through the integration, waveform result and circuit diagram images can be automatically captured for document use without changing their existing schematic database.

“ICanalyst provides significant productivity improvements for designers in automating and reporting,” said Robert Hum, vice president and general manager, DSM division, Mentor Graphics. “This is especially time-saving for repetitive tasks such as producing datasheets. ICanalyst has an easy-to-use cockpit from which you can manage multiple designs and test benches with continual updates on incremental modifications.”

About Mentor Graphics

Mentor Graphics Corporation 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. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues in the last fiscal year of about $1,015 million. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.

(Mentor Graphics and Mentor are registered trademarks and ICanalyst is a trademark of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company and/or product names are the trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.)