Developed for foundries and in-house chip design teams, Solido Characterizer uses advanced predictive AI technologies to accelerate and improve the creation of SPICE-based Liberty files, addressing the increasing complexity of new processes, tighter margins, greater number of conditions, and emerging formats such as LVF.
Solido Characterizer delivers seven times faster performance, reducing Liberty file generation from weeks to days, thanks to two complementary innovations. Its faster AI engine accelerates Liberty generation for multi-PVT creation and advanced LVF techniques, achieving a five-fold increase. The first AI-accelerated characterization simulator designed specifically for this purpose, Solido LibSPICE, adds an additional performance boost of more than double. Together, these elements help ensure libraries are ready for any compute node without delaying timelines or compromising data quality.
In response to the increasing demand for high-quality, production-ready libraries across the semiconductor industry, Solido Characterizer enables teams to scale characterization across multiple IPs and design groups without compromising accuracy or timeline predictability. Its integration with Solido Analytics provides engineers with real-time quality assurance information, progress tracking, and automated re-execution capabilities that greatly streamline workflows. Solido Characterizer works in tandem with Solido Generator, which uses the reference Liberty files generated by Characterizer to train AI models that generate additional library views without SPICE simulation, dramatically accelerating turnaround time and completing the end-to-end library creation workflow within the Solido Characterization Suite. Solido Characterizer can also be combined with Solido Fuse, based on the Fuse™ AI system for EDA, to enable generative and agentive AI workflows that allow engineers to work faster across the entire characterization workflow.
“AI is redefining what can be achieved across all dimensions of semiconductor design, and characterization is one of the most transformative opportunities,” said Amit Gupta, AI Strategy Director, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Siemens EDA, Siemens Digital Industries Software. “With Solido Characterizer, we offer intelligent automation that radically changes the economics of library development, enabling our customers to achieve levels of speed and accuracy that were previously simply impossible. This allows engineering teams across all process nodes to innovate with confidence as the demands of modern semiconductor design continue to grow.”
Main advantages for the customer
Semiconductor teams across all process nodes face increasing pressure to deliver fast and accurate characterization. New process technologies are raising the bar even higher, with tighter electrical margins and a greater number of boundary conditions, adding significant complexity to each characterization run.
Solido Characterizer addresses these realities with:
High-performance computational acceleration: Provides customers with a competitive advantage across all semiconductor nodes by reducing characterization time and improving accuracy, directly enabling faster commercialization of complex and advanced designs.
Managing complex data formats: Emerging formats, such as LVF, require robust characterizers capable of efficiently processing large and detailed datasets. Fast and accurate characterization helps teams keep pace with constantly evolving modeling standards and avoids bottlenecks in later stages.
Scalable for multiple teams and IP: Accelerated and accurate characterization supports large organizations with many design teams, enabling rapid delivery of production-ready libraries for diverse projects, even as libraries and models increase in complexity.
Live Liberty debugging for productivity: Integration with Solido Analytics provides real-time quality control of characterizer results, along with resource monitoring for ongoing runs and optimized reruns for increased productivity.
Integration with Solido's custom integrated circuit solutions: Encompassing SPICE simulation, variation-sensitive verification, and IP validation, directly contributing to accelerating time to market for complex semiconductor designs.
Solido Characterizer in use in the semiconductor industry : “Thanks to Solido Characterization Suite, the GlobalFoundries team has been able to validate and create high-quality design margins and .lib files. With Characterizer specifically, we were able to maintain production accuracy in correlation with SPICE models, while achieving a 20-30% acceleration in our internal workflows,” said James Culp, Design Enablement Member at GlobalFoundries. “The adoption process for Siemens’ Solido Characterizer was quick and easy thanks to the tool’s intuitive configuration capabilities and Siemens’ robust and highly responsive technical support. We were able to deliver approval-ready margins and freedom for multiple high-profile customers and GF technologies.
"Siemens' EDA tools are fundamental to Anatrix, with Solido Characterizer being a key enabler for characterizing our library of radiation-resistant and single-event latch-up digital gates, helping us to work efficiently and with confidence," said Greg Pauls, president of Anatrix.
"Silicon testing of our analog and mixed-signal IP has verified that post-design parasitic simulations, performed using Siemens' EDA flow, accurately predicted the IP's behavior, reinforcing our confidence in the results and supporting first-time success.".
