Credo Semiconductor Turns to ProPlus Design Solutions' NanoSpice for Advanced SerDes IP Designs

SAN JOSE, CA--(Marketwired - Sep 20, 2016) - Credo Semiconductor, a global innovation leader in Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) technology, integrated NanoSpice™, a high-performance parallel SPICE simulator from ProPlus Design Solutions, Inc., into its advanced SerDes transceiver intellectual property (IP) design and verification flow.

The parallel SPICE circuit simulator was selected for its speed, high accuracy and high capacity that enabled Credo Semiconductor to deliver its 56G PAM-4 SerDes IP on TSMC's 16 nanometer (nm) FinFET Plus (16FF+) and FinFET Compact (16FFC) advanced process node. Previously, Credo's engineering team had to partition its large designs into smaller blocks. With NanoSpice, the team is able to simulate the whole design with high accuracy and superior performance on multi-core machines that improved the design confidence and significantly reduced turnaround time.

"NanoSpice reduces our simulation time significantly, and has become an important part of our design flow," affirms Mr. Lawrence Cheng, chief technology officer at Credo Semiconductor. "Its accuracy, performance and capacity exceed our expectations and meet our requirements to develop leading SerDes solutions on advanced process nodes including TSMC's 16FF+ and 16FFC processes."

Ideally suited for highly sensitive, large scale analog applications, NanoSpice offers the industry's highest accuracy, largest simulation capacity and superior performance because of its pure SPICE engine, innovative big data architecture and scalable parallelization. ProPlus' advanced parallelization technology enables simulation of up to 16 cores with a single license that allows users to fully leverage the power of advanced multi-core hardware resources to run faster and/or more simulations without increasing the total hardware and software investment. NanoSpice simulates designs of more than 50-million circuit elements with the highest accuracy setting providing up to five times more capacity than other SPICE simulators.

"Credo Semiconductor has built a reputation around a unique SerDes architecture," says Dr. Zhihong Liu, chairman and chief executive officer of ProPlus, the leading technology provider of giga-scale SPICE simulation and nano-scale SPICE modeling solutions. "To provide leading high performance SerDes solutions, Credo needs a tool partner able to meet its exacting requirements on accuracy and performance for complex designs, and we're delighted to fill that role."

NanoSpice shares the same core SPICE engine with ProPlus' BSIMProPlus™, the de facto golden device modeling software used by all leading foundries, enabling foundry-validated accuracy and compatibility. NanoSpice has full SPICE analysis features and supports industry-standard inputs and outputs, enabling direct replacement of other SPICE simulators in existing design flows.

About Credo Semiconductor
Credo Semiconductor is a leading provider of high-performance, mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for the data center, enterprise networking and high-performance computing markets. Credo's advanced Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) technology delivers the bandwidth scalability and end-to-end signal integrity for next-generation platforms requiring single-lane 25G, 50G, and 100G connectivity. The company makes its SerDes available in the form of Intellectual Property (IP) licensing on the most advanced processing nodes and with complementary product families focused on extending reach and multiplexing to higher data rates. Credo is headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., and has offices in Shanghai and Hong Kong. For more information: www.credosemi.com

About ProPlus Design Solutions
ProPlus Design Solutions, Inc. delivers Electronic Design Automation (EDA) solutions with the mission to enhance the link between design and manufacturing. As the leading provider of nano-scale SPICE modeling, the innovative giga-scale SPICE simulation and design for yield (DFY) applications, it provides the industry's golden SPICE modeling platform, the first and only GigaSpice simulator, and the only integrated DFY design platform. Founded in 2006, ProPlus Design Solutions has R&D centers in the San Jose, Calif., Beijing and Jinan, China, and offices in Tokyo, Japan, Hsinchu, Taiwan, and Shanghai, China. More information about ProPlus Design Solutions can be found at www.proplussolutions.com.

BSIMProPlus, Model Explorer, NanoExplorer, NanoSpice, NanoYield and NoisePro are registered trademarks of ProPlus Design Solutions. ProPlus Design Solutions acknowledges trademarks or registered trademarks of other organizations for their respective products and services.