May 3, 2004 -- Accellera, has announced the formation of a technical subcommittee to improve electronic design library characterization and tool interoperability. Accellera's Harmony subcommittee will define the common library characterization dataset needed for IC implementation and equivalent representation of the same data in Synopsys' Liberty format and the IEEE Std 1603-2003 (Advanced Library Format (ALF)).

IEEE Std 1603 standardizes the language and semantic representation for design libraries. It supports RTL to GDSII descriptions of functional, electrical performance and layout views for technology libraries, scalable from cells to complex hierarchical design blocks.

Synopsys' widely used open library format, Liberty, includes the .lib, .plib, and SPM formats. Liberty is supported by more than 100 semiconductor vendors with more than 750 submicron libraries, and by more than 30 EDA vendors that supply over 75 production tools. It has evolved over 15 years along with technology and modeling needs and is a proven format, which can easily be extended to meet the needs of designers. Recent enhancements to Liberty include the addition of noise modeling capabilities, which will allow library suppliers and developers using this format to make their cell libraries ready for a comprehensive signal integrity flow for 130 and 90 nanometer designs.

The Harmony standard will improve EDA tool interoperability and reduce the need for tool-specific library extensions. It will specify the semantics of the library contents as well as a cross-reference between Liberty and ALF.

"Accellera welcomes every opportunity to extend our efforts to improve electronic design automation efficiency," noted Dennis Brophy, Chairman of Accellera. "Our Harmony group will improve design tool interoperability via a standard library format and address the challenges of next-generation semiconductor process technology characterization."

"The benefit of this work can be measured in cost reduction and improvements in quality of design libraries," added the technical subcommittee chairman, Dr. Wolfgang Roethig, Senior Design Engineering Manager, Design Solutions Center, NEC Electronics America, Inc., who initiated and leads this project. "With Liberty being the most widely used and ALF being the most comprehensive library format available to the industry, the technical subcommittee selected the strongest possible foundation for this project."