-~ ~~~~~~~ ==- CONVEX~~~~~~~ '=~ INTEGRATED CIRCUIT SIMULATION: An Applications Profile from Convex Computer Corporation An assortment of wafers from Thomson Components-M ostek A memory array from Thomson Components- M ostek Corporation. Corporation. Thomson-M ostek uses a proprietary version of SPICE in circuit Wafers in a diffusion furnace are subjected to temperatures of up design. to 1.1 00°C. Thomson Components-M ostek Corporation designs aided design techniques. employing SPI CE simulation soft­ and manufactures integrated circuits for data communica­ w are for circuit design and other programs for device and tions. microcomputers. specialized memori es. and semi­ process design. custom fa brications. The company uses the latest computer- THE PROBLEM THE SOLUTION As semiconductor geometries shrink In the fall of I 984, M ostek found its and simulation accuracy becomes more "The C-1 system is a small Cray; solution in the Convex C-1 supercom­ critical. the run length of any given sim­ it is not a large VAX puter, a 64-bit. integrated sca lar and ulation program increases dramatically It is truly a mini-supercomputer. vector processor with a Cray™-like At Thomson-M ostek, work is underway Convex has opened up architecture. The system cost 5500,000, to develop memory simulations that that architecture to a and delivered performance one-quarter have up to 8,000 devices. At this level of much broader group of people, that of the Cyber 205 but was between complexity, device characterization runs and we have had to come 13 and 40 times faster than the com­ with SPICE can take hours or days to rapidly up the learning cuNe pany's scalar computers. The design complete. to understand the power engineers at Mostek found they could In 1984. Mostek was using a Cyber and potential of working with do multiple program runs per day on a 205™ on a time-sharing basis to run its a vector machine. system which offered supercomputer SPICE simulation codes for the design of The vectorizing compiler performance, UNIX™, VAXNMS® FOR­ semiconductor devices. Because of the allows easier vectorization of our TRAN compatibility at the source code high cost of renting time on the 205 dur­ level, and ease of conversion of the existing VAX FORTRAN programs. ing peak hours. the company often existing software base. resorted to running large jobs on the We can drop anything on it. Cyber over the weekend. Using the On the Cyber, we had THE ORGANIZATIONS to do a considerable company's sca lar minicomputers was M ostek Corporation was founded in out of the q uestion because SPICE amount of hand-coding - 1969 and specializes in data commu­ requires large amounts of memory, not this is simply not nications. microcomputers. specialized readily available on existing minicom­ necessary on the Convex. memories, and semi-custom products. puter systems. Moreover, Mostek For our application, The company, now a wholly owned engineers found that the runtime on parallelism cannot help much - subsidiary of Thomson, is located in sca lar minis far exceeded acceptable there are only so many things Carrollton, Texas. turnaround. In short. the minis simply you can do at one time. Convex Computer Corporation is could not provide the performance they SPICE is not parallelisable, headquartered in Ri chardson, Texas. required for SPICE runs. and, typically, vector pipes and was founded in September 1982 to The Cyber 205 solution was frustrat­ are fast enough. design. manufacture, market, and ser­ ing. Even though the system ran its The C-1 is the solution vice affordable supercomputers for a SPICE up to I 50 times faster than the for SPICE - the machine pays wide range of technical users. The com­ company's minicomputer sys tems. the for itself on SPICE alone. pany's first product, the Convex C- 1, company frequently had to wait until began shipment in M arch 1985, and the As the development of nights or w eekends for its runs and company has installed over 50 systems results because of the high cost of the integrated circuits becomes more to date. The C-1 combines the memory weekday rates. In addition, the time complex, owing to the advances and vector processing capabilities pre­ required to transfer data to and from the in science which allow for viously found only on supercomputers, Cyber was longer than so me of the a greater density of transistors with the software advantages and price short runs that Mostek engineers on any given IC of minicomputers. needed. The Cyber 205 was simply too simulation needs in the expensive - and, ironica lly, had an ECAD market become more inherent delay factor. complex also. To win in this market, companies need the large memory capacity and performance levels of a supercomputer. " - Branon Dunn, Manager, Computer Aids to Design, Thomson-Mostek Convex and the Convex logo are trademarks of Convex Computer Corporation. Cray is a trademark of Cray Research. Inc. UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories. VAXNMS is a registered trademark of Digital Equipment Corp. Cyber 205 is a trademark of Control Data Corporation. All graphics courtesy Thomson Components-M ostek Corporation. © 1986 CONVEX Computer Corporation Although the material contained herein has been carefully reviewed. CONVEX COMPUTER CORPORATION (CONVEX) does not warrant it to be free of errors or omissions. CONVEX reserves the right to make corrections. updates. revisions or changes to the information contained herein. CONVEX does not warrant the material described herein to be free of patent infringement. Publication 080-000986-01 6/86 Printed in the U.SA .