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From the floor: Synopsys/Acceleware speed up simulations

A new way to dramatically speed up the electromagnetic simulation of CMOS image sensors was being demonstrated today on the Synopsys booth. In one example cited by Ric Borges, Synopsys’ technical marketing manager, the simulation time was reduced from more than 13 hours to just 22 minutes.

The key to this step-change in performance is hardware acceleration technology developed by Acceleware, a developer of high-performance computing applications. According to Ryan Schneider, the company’s CTO, Acceleware’s approach is to exploit the computing power of graphics processing units (GPUs) to deliver significantly more processing power in a deskside unit.

The solution developed by the two companies exploits Acceleware’s ClusterInABox Quad Q30 workstation, which comprises a workstation plus two accelerator deskside units to deliver up to two Teraflops of computational power. This has been combined with Synopsys’ device simulation software, known as Sentaurus, that exploits a finite-difference time-domain algorithm to model in 3D the behaviour of light within a CMOS image sensor.

According to Borges, designers of image sensors are increasingly turning to computer simulation to optimize performance before fabrication. With the move to 200 mm and 300 mm wafers, he says, a company could spend tens of thousands of dollars on a single trial run.

Normally, device engineers simulate the transmission of light through a single pixel, and then use those results to improve device performance. It’s also crucial to model the behaviour of a small array of pixels to check for cross talk, but the computing overhead makes that prohibitive except as a very final check.

Now, says Borges, engineers can get the results from these larger simulations in a fraction of the time, which means that cross-talk issues can be identified much earlier in the design process. In the highly competitive optoelectronics sector, where speed-to-market is crucial, Synopys and Acceleware believe they are onto a winner.

Posted by Susan Curtis on January 23, 2008 5:52 PM | Permalink