July 13, 2012 -- Dolphin Integration has announce an enhancement to its Sesame 6-track library, which can be used for helping logic designers reach 10% to 20% density gains on any logic design from 180nm down to 40nm. Sesame uHD-BTF replaces standard D flip-flops with pulsed latches named "spinner cells." The main advantage of the spinner cells is a significant improvement in terms of density, 30% denser than with D flip-flops.

According to Dolphin Integration, designing with pulsed latches is not a widespread practice because the available pulsed latch cells present some significant drawbacks. First, 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 is 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 claims to be the first IP provider to propose an optimal insertion of pulsed latches on critical paths.

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 place-and-route 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, in both mature and advanced processes, ensuring high-yield circuits despite mismatch.