True Circuits Attends 60th Design Automation Conference, Celebrates 25 Years of Timing Excellence

July 10-12, 2023, Moscone Convention Center, West Hall, Booth #1335

Who

True Circuits, Inc. (TCI), a leading provider of analog and mixed-signal intellectual property (IP) for the semiconductor, systems and electronics industries.

What

At the 60^th Design Automation Conference (DAC), TCI will introduce its powerful JSPICE™ simulation and design environment which has been used by True Circuits over the last 25 years to create complex analog and digital IP and will now be available to the public initially through a beta test. TCI will also showcase its complete line of high performance and general purpose analog and synthesizable PLL and DLL IP, as well as its innovative and flexible DDR PHY. True Circuits is also celebrating its 25th year in business!

TCI had its humble beginnings in early 1998, with a small but highly motivated team working out of a conference room at its initial customer. The challenge in these early days of the IP industry was to convince big companies they could confidently license analog timing IP from a small company. TCI quickly realized that it had to devise a family of standardized timing IP to cover a variety of chip applications, offer customization to address existing legacy requirements and focus on quality to make IP integration and testing seamless. With the goal of supporting many customers, ever changing interface standards and any foundry/IDM process, TCI took the dramatic decision to develop many of its own CAD tools to eventually automate all aspects of the design flow.

With the hard work and dedication of many talented employees over the last 25 years, TCI has implemented a powerful and highly automated simulation and design environment called JSPICE™ that has allowed us to easily support many IP design types (PLLs, DLLs, DDR PHYs), all major foundries and most IDM processes and process variants, and hundreds of semiconductor customers and design partners from 250nm to 4nm. With a global customer base covering a wide spectrum of chip applications and many billions of chips working in the field, True Circuits is immensely proud of what we have accomplished and the impact we have had on the semiconductor industry.

True Circuits has always measured our success by the success of our customers. Over the past 25 years, we have had the privilege of working on the most prevalent consumer electronic products and the challenge of meeting the toughest requirements, but it has always been the learning and the relationships we have developed with our customers and partners that means the most to us. Please stop by our booth to say hi and share some memories from the years gone by. We would be happy to talk about the future as well!

In addition to celebrating 25 years of timing excellence, True Circuits will introduce the JSPICE simulation and design environment to DAC attendees, and will offer daily presentations and demos highlighting the features and uses of this powerful design platform. JSPICE has been under continuous development and use by True Circuits for over 25 years to create complex analog and digital circuits from 250nm to 4nm. JSPICE greatly simplifies and expedites the process of designing and characterizing complex analog and digital circuits by dramatically facilitating and enhancing the process of running simulations and interpreting their results. We are glad to discuss how Interested users, whether individuals, students or employees of companies, can join the beta test in advance of a commercial release and start benefitting from and contributing to JSPICE!

TCI will also showcase its high performance, silicon proven DDR PHY with fully automatic training managed by a light weight special purpose processor, and remarkable physical flexibility to adapt to each customer’s die floorplan and package. The PHY supports LPDDR5, DDR4, LPDDR4, DDR3, and LPDDR3 protocols, and is available in a variety of TSMC processes from 40nm to 4nm. The availability of this silicon proven PHY means customers can now license a PHY with significant performance and features without all the implementation and timing closure hassles that are common with current DDR offerings. During the show, we will be giving short presentations and demos of our DDR PHY in action. This will be a great opportunity to ask questions and learn what makes a TCI DDR PHY hard macro one special piece of IP.

As always, we are happy to discuss your chip requirements and timing needs, and recommend the best analog or synthesizable PLL or DLL from our complete line of high performance and general purpose timing IP. These high quality, low-jitter PLL and DLL hard and soft macros are suited to a wide variety of interface standards and chip applications. They are pin-programmable, highly process tolerant, reusable and available for delivery in TSMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and UMC processes from 180nm to 4nm.

We have a lot to celebrate and discuss this year, so please stop by our booth #1335 and spend some time with the timing experts!

When and Where

Moscone Convention Center, West Hall, San Francisco, CA

True Circuits Booth #1335
Monday - Wednesday, July 10-12, 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM

JSPICE™ Presentation Schedule
Monday July 10, 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM
Tuesday July 11, 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM
Wednesday July 12, 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM

lease register for a JSPICE™ presentation day and time and also become eligible for a prize at www.truecircuits.com/jspice_dac2023_pres.html.

If you would like a private JSPICE demo at DAC, please register at www.truecircuits.com/jspice_dac2023_demo.html.

Contacts

For more information about True Circuits' PLLs, DLLs, DDR PHYs and JSPICE™, please visit www.truecircuits.com.

For more information about the Design Automation Conference, please visit www.dac.com.

About True Circuits JSPICE™

JSPICE is a powerful simulation and design environment developed and used by True Circuits over the last 25 years to create complex analog and digital circuits from 250nm to 4nm. JSPICE greatly simplifies and expedites the process of designing and characterizing complex analog and digital circuits by dramatically facilitating and enhancing the process of running simulations and interpreting their results. It provides extended input preprocessing, timing analysis, mixed-mode simulation, generalized waveform analysis, parametric simulation sweeps and optimization, parallel simulation job control, network process and cloud management, and data reduction and output processing. Characterization flows allow users to encapsulate all information needed to automatically and fully characterize a design and even generate reports. JSPICE also provides a powerful mechanism for schematic-based electrical checks for use by users who want all of the advanced features of JSPICE without understanding any of the details. While JSPICE includes a core SPICE simulator with some features facilitated by the JSPICE language, it can work with any SPICE simulator. For more information about JSPICE, visit www.truecircuits.com/jspice.html.

About True Circuits Analog PLLs and DLLs

True Circuits offers a complete family of standardized and silicon-proven general purpose, clock generator, deskew, spread spectrum, IoT and Ultra PLLs, and multi-slave and multi-phase DLLs that spans nearly all performance points and features typically requested by ASIC, FPGA and SoC designers. These high quality, low-jitter PLL and DLL hard macros are suited to a wide variety of interface standards and chip applications. They are pin-programmable, highly process tolerant and reusable. They are also easy to integrate and are fully supported, so customers can reduce both design and silicon risks.

True Circuits PLLs support a wide range of frequencies, multiplication factors and functions over which they deliver optimal performance, avoiding the cost and complexity of licensing multiple point-solution PLLs or fiddling with digital PLLs. TCI’s PLLs are available with ring-oscillator and LC-tank architectures, fractional-N division and frequency spreading for EMI reduction. TCI's DLLs are available in multi-slave and multi-phase versions and different sizes and form factors. They delay a set of signals by precise and adjustable fractions of a reference clock cycle independent of voltage and temperature and are ideal for high-speed DDR and ONFI interface applications. Customized PLL and DLL solutions are also available for specialized chip applications.

True Circuits PLLs and DLLs are available for immediate customer delivery in TSMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and UMC processes from 180nm to 4nm. For more information about True Circuits IP products, visit www.truecircuits.com/tci_technology.html and www.truecircuits.com/product_matrix.html.

About True Circuits Synthesizable PLLs and DLLs

The synthesizable Precision PLL generates multiple precision clocks supporting any modulation scheme from almost DC to 10GHz. The outputs can be independently dynamically programmed cycle-by-cycle to any clock period and the clock frequency can be a precise ratio of floating point numbers times the reference frequency. The integrated phase noise is better than 500ps RMS. It is ideal for SerDes, processor and DVFS applications.

The synthesizable micro PLL is a small synthesizable general-purpose PLL that multiplies the reference clock by any integer or fractional-N value from 1 to 500K. It supports reference clock frequencies as low as 32KHz and output frequencies as high as 3GHz. It can stay locked to the reference clock while it changes over a 10:1 frequency range. Because it is synthesizable, it can support spreading as well as other modulation profiles. It is relatively low power, very fast locking and can quickly restart from a sleep mode.

The synthesizable micro DLL is a small synthesizable DLL with a master and multiple slaves topology. It can support reference frequencies typically in the range of 500MHz to 3GHz and track reference changes over an 8:1 frequency range while providing 9-bit accuracy in slave delay programming. Slave delays can be changed glitch free and the DLL can quickly restart from a sleep mode. It has a very small zero code offset that can be precisely cancelled.

About True Circuits DDR PHYs

The DDR PHY is a high-performance, scalable system using a radically new architecture that continuously and automatically adjusts each pin individually, correcting skew within byte lanes. This state-of-the-art tuning acts independently on each pin, data phase and chip select value. Read gate and data eye timing are also continuously adjusted. Fully automatic training is managed by a light weight special purpose processor and includes multi-cycle write leveling and read gate training and also read/write data eye training, including PHY Vref and DRAM Vref settings.

The PHY employs a localized and optimized PHY-to-memory controller interface to ease timing closure. The circuitry in each pin is able to measure the data eye and jitter, and calculate flight delays. The PHY also includes a full speed read/write BIST, which tests the complete read and write paths of every pin simultaneously with pseudo-random data.

Remarkable physical flexibility allows the PHY to adapt to each customer's die floorplan and package constraints, yet is verified and delivered as a unit for easy timing closure with no assembly required. The PHY supports LPDDR5, DDR4, LPDDR4, DDR3 and LPDDR3, and is DFI 5.1 compliant. When combined with an appropriate DDR memory controller, a complete and fully-automatic DDR system is realized.

The True Circuits DDR PHY is silicon proven and immediately available for customer delivery in TSMC's 28/22nm HPC/HPC+ processes. The PHY is also available upon request in a variety of TSMC processes from 40nm to 4nm. Interested customers can obtain more product information on the web at www.truecircuits.com/ddr_phy.html or by contacting True Circuits at sales@truecircuits.com.

About True Circuits

True Circuits develops and markets a broad range of industry leading PLLs, DLLs and DDR PHY hard macros for ICs for the semiconductor, systems and electronics industries. TCI's robust state-of-the-art circuits, methodical and proven design strategy, and close association with the world's leading foundries, IDMs, and design services companies allow the company to quickly and reliably create new and innovative designs in a variety of advanced process technologies. Over the last 25 years, True Circuits has distinguished itself as the technology leader in the timing IP space, and its PLLs and DLLs are used extensively around the world in its customers' products with production volumes well into the billions.

True Circuits is headquartered at 4300 El Camino Real, Suite 200, Los Altos, California 94022 and can be found on the web at www.truecircuits.com. Product inquiries can be made by calling the company directly at (650) 949-3400 or via e-mail at sales@truecircuits.com.

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