AI-driven technology automatically identifies and addresses EM-IR violations

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced the new Cadence Voltus InsightAI, the industry’s first generative AI technology that automatically identifies the root cause of EM-IR drop violations early in the design process and selects and implements the most efficient fixes to improve power, performance, and area (PPA). Using Voltus InsightAI, customers can fix up to 95% of violations prior to signoff, leading to a 2X productivity improvement in EM-IR closure.

Power integrity is a major design challenge at advanced nodes, with designers regularly facing a significant number of EM-IR violations at signoff, making it imperative to address this challenge early in the design phase. One of the major bottlenecks of in-design EM-IR analysis is that it is computationally very expensive due to the size and coupled nature of the power network. The new AI-driven Voltus InsightAI helps to overcome this bottleneck by utilizing new breakthrough machine learning methods for very fast incremental IR analysis. Using Voltus InsightAI, customers can use in-design analysis to enhance on-chip and chipset power integrity. The technology enables greater engineering efficiency for uncovering issues early and offers key productivity-enhancing features:

Fast IR Inferencing Engine: The solution uses proprietary neural networks to build models of the power grid and can perform extremely fast incremental IR analysis to provide instant feedback on the impact of design changes.

IR Drop Diagnostics: Voltus InsightAI uses deep learning to discover the root cause of IR drop problems and can quickly identify aggressors, victims, and resistance bottlenecks. It uses electrical, spatial, and timing factors for predicting IR drop issues during design.

Multi-Method Fixing: Decision-tree methods are utilized to perform timing and design rule check (DRC)–aware fixes of IR drop, using multiple methods like placement, grid reinforcement, routing, and engineering change orders (ECOs). Voltus InsightAI selects precise fixing methods based on the root cause of the problem, driving better utilization and improved PPA.

Fully Integrated Solution: Voltus InsightAI is fully integrated with Cadence’s solutions, including the Cadence Innovus Implementation System, the Cadence Tempus Timing Solution, the Cadence Voltus IC Power Integrity Solution, and the Cadence PegasusVerification System for complete IR design closure from implementation to signoff that is timing- and DRC-aware.

The generative AI-driven Voltus InsightAI supports Cadence’s Intelligent System Design strategy, enabling SoC design excellence.