France - Dolphin Integration (www.dolphin.fr) announces a breakthrough solution enriching SESAME 6-track library, which can be used for helping logic designers reach 10% to 20% density gains on any logic design from 180 nm down to 40 nm.

SESAME uHD-BTF benefits from replacing classical D flip-flops with pulsed latches named “spinner cell”. The main advantage of the spinner cell is a significant improvement in terms of density, 30% denser than with D flip-flops.

Designing with pulsed latches is not a widespread practice as pulsed latch cells available on the market present some significant drawbacks.

Firstly, as designers need to optimize the pulsed clock, clock path synthesis and static timing analysis are far more tortuous. The other downside of pulsed latches was the increased number of hold time violations compared to flip flop designs, so much that a logic with pulsed latches finally tends to have the same density after routing as with flip-flops.

Dolphin Integration is the first IP provider to propose an optimal insertion of pulsed latches on critical paths.

Indeed, SESAME uHD-BTF is endowed with an “Insert pulse generation” script for automating pulse generation. For the designer, implementing with spinner cells is as simple as implementing with flip-flops. The script is compatible with the main P&R solutions on the market.

The spinner cell is also designed to minimize hold time violations with the objective to maintain the same placement density as with flip-flops.

Also, as a pulsed latch is generally more sensitive to process variations, Dolphin Integration contributes a proprietary design methodology, industrialized in both mature and advanced processes, thus ensuring high yield circuits despite mismatch.

Logic designers are discovering, year after year with Dolphin, that Standard Cell libraries are in the realm of circuitry wide open to block-busting innovations, with drastic effect on their productivity.