NanGate, Sagantec to automate standard cell library creation

NanGate Inc. has teamed up with its EDA partner, Sagantec, to offer a complete automated solution for standard cell library creation. According to the terms of the deal, NanGate will OEM Sagantec's patented 2D dynamic compaction technology and integrate it within NanGate Library Creator platform. The integration will provide leading edge 14nm standard cell layout creation and validation tools that will boost engineering productivity to the levels seen in previous process nodes. NanGate and Sagantec's technologies complement each other and jointly enable users to produce sign-off quality DRC clean layouts in sub-22nm geometries, added the companies.

"This collaboration solves some of the most challenging and time consuming issues in 22nm and below," said Ole Christian Andersen, president and CEO at NanGate.

"Customers are struggling with increased design rules complexity, use of double patterning, local interconnect and special layout forms," said Alexandre Toniolo, VP of business development at NanGate. "They reported 3x to 10x increase in the time spent on transistor placement, routing and layout clean-up, when compared to the same tasks in previous nodes. With the addition of Sagantec's 2D dynamic compaction engine, NanGate Library Creator provides the complete solution to overcome these challenges and quickly produce DRC correct layouts in 20nm and 14nm."

"Sagantec's nmigrate compaction engine was architected to address the new challenging rules of advanced process nodes and has already been proven on multiple 20nm and 14nm processes. nmigrate figures out the best solution considering all design rules, layout constraints and the interaction between them and delivers an optimised, DRC clean layout," said Coby Zelnik, president and CEO of Sagantec.

The bundled solution is expected to shorten time-to-market and will be sold by NanGate as an add-on option to NanGate Library Creator. It will be made available to NanGate's existing customers in March and to others in Q2.