SAN JOSE, Calif., May 15, 2019 — Cadence Design Systems, Inc. today announced broad support for memory technologies across a range of Samsung Foundry’s advanced process technologies targeting high-bandwidth applications. As a result of the longstanding collaboration with Samsung Foundry, Cadence has taped out DDR5/4 PHY IP on the Samsung 7nm Low Power Plus (7LPP) process, GDDR6 PHY IP on the Samsung 14nm Low Power Plus (14LPP) process and 2.4G High-Bandwidth Memory 2 (HBM2) PHY IP on the Samsung 10nm Low Power Plus (10LPP) process, which has been recharacterized as the 8nm Low Power Plus (8LPP) process. In addition, Cadence PHY IP for GDDR6 has achieved silicon success on the Samsung 7LPP process. Mutual customers can begin creating designs using Samsung Foundry’s advanced process technologies with the confidence that the Cadence DRAM interface IP is ready for use.

The Cadence IP that supports Samsung Foundry’s various advanced nodes is intended for several emerging application areas including high-performance computing (HPC), mobile, artificial intelligence (AI), IoT, graphics, automated driving (AD) and adaptive driver assistance systems (ADAS). Customers benefit from having access to a complete, single-vendor solution for controller, PHY and Verification IP (VIP) that speeds chip integration time and reduces interoperability risk. Other key competitive advantages include:

• Cadence design techniques reuse technology from Cadence’s silicon-proven DDR and SerDes designs, resulting in lower risk when implementing advanced memory technologies
• Cadence’s low bit-error rate (BER) for GDDR6 IP reduces retries on the memory bus, giving applications greater bandwidth and lower maximum latency
• Cadence’s design margin allows users to implement GDDR6 on PCBs using normal fiberglass FR4 materials, reducing the cost of GDDR6 deployment
• Cadence’s reference design for memory interfaces allows users to replicate Cadence’s test chip results in their own products
• Cadence DRAM controllers are based on the industry-leading Denali DDR controller, which includes a full set of features for popular memory interfaces

“Cadence’s silicon success and tapeouts in Samsung Foundry’s 7LPP, 8LPP, 10LPP and 14LPP processes technologies are significant milestones in our successful collaboration, enabling the delivery of high-performance DDR5/4 PHY, GDDR6 PHY and HBM2 IP solutions to our mutual customers,” said Jaehong Park, executive vice president of Design Platform Development at Samsung Electronics. “Customers designing at advanced nodes now have a range of Cadence’s DRAM interface IP from which to choose, as part of the broad enablement of DRAM interfaces in Samsung Foundry processes.”

“Samsung Electronics is a leader in state-of-the-art memory technologies, where we have consistently been the first to enable the most advanced memory solutions,” said Harry Yoon, vice president of Memory Product Planning & Application Engineering at Samsung Electronics. “In collaboration with Cadence, we will continue to expand our premium memory lineups with high performance, high capacity and low power consumption to support the growing demand for advanced high-bandwidth applications, including HPC, AI and ADAS.”

“By utilizing the latest technologies from Samsung Electronics, we’re continuing to drive advanced-node innovation as evidenced with our GDDR6 PHY IP silicon success and our latest DDR5/4 PHY, GDDR6 PHY and HBM2 IP tapeouts,” said Amjad Qureshi, corporate vice president, R&D, Design IP at Cadence. “Our mutual customers can access all the simulation and emulation data required to ensure designs will work as intended, and we’re ready to engage with customers now.”

Technology Specifications

Customers using Samsung’s advanced nodes and the Cadence IP can achieve the following performance specifications:

• GDDR6 technology using Cadence IP allows up to 512Gbit/sec between the host CPU and a single GDDR6 die
• HBM2 technology using Cadence IP allows up to 2400Gbit/sec bandwidth between host CPU and a single stack of HBM2
• DDR5 technology using Cadence IP allows up to 128Gbytes of DRAM per channel

Availability

Cadence PHY IP for GDDR6, DDR5/4 and HBM2, as well as memory models, are available now for customer engagements. Design files are also ready for select customers to begin integration work.

About Cadence

Cadence enables electronic systems and semiconductor companies to create the innovative end products that are transforming the way people live, work and play. Cadence’s software, hardware and semiconductor IP are used by customers to deliver products to market faster. The company’s System Design Enablement strategy helps customers develop differentiated products—from chips to boards to systems—in mobile, consumer, cloud datacenter, automotive, aerospace, IoT, industrial and other market segments. Cadence is listed as one of Fortune Magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For.

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Source: Cadence