Alps Alpine Uses Siemens’ Symphony Platform to Verify Mixed-Signal Capacitance Detection IC

April 25, 2023

News

Alps Alpine used Siemens’ Symphony™ platform for mixed-signal applications when developing and verifying its new functionally safe capacitance detection integrated circuit (IC), which enables proximity, touch, and spatial gesture detection across a range of human-machine interface systems in applications like automotive and smart devices. The Symphony platform allowed Alps Alpine to achieve silicon accurate simulation for the new IC, increasing functional verification productivity by 5x.

Powered by Siemens' Analog FastSPICE platform, Symphony's foundry-certified circuit simulators and industry-standard HDL simulators enable precise, efficient verification of complicated nanometer-scale mixed-signal ICs.

"A major feature of our latest IC is the use of absolute self-capacitance detection to achieve outstanding high sensitivity and noise resistance performance," said Akihisa Iikura, IC design manager for Alps Alpine. "As a manufacturer of in-vehicle electrical components, we are required to comply with the ISO26262 functional safety standard, and the semiconductors we use must additionally comply with aggressive Automotive Safety Integrity Level-B (ASIL-B) requirements."

Symphony's modular design and inclusion of Analog FastSPICE results in speed and accuracy payoffs in mixed-signal simulation and compatibility with digital solvers that can help improve debug productivity.

For more information, visit https://eda.sw.siemens.com/en-US/ic/symphony.