The BENEFITS of PIANO 2.0 include:

• Slashes the time needed to close timing compared to manual pipeline insertion methodologies, which reduces overall schedule risk. With a well-defined methodology, interconnect timing can be closed in as little as 24 hours.
• Shrinks interconnect area by 10-15% compared to manual pipeline insertion methodologies, which over-provision pipeline stages
• Decreases interconnect power consumption due to less pipeline logic and use of fewer low voltage threshold (LVT) cells
• Provides seeding of pipeline stage locations which allows place and route tools a better starting point, eliminating costly place and route cycles

New CAPABILITIES in PIANO 2.0:

• Automated interconnect timing closure for both cache coherent and non-coherent interconnect subsystems
• Generation of a meta-floorplan from an IP list to provide timing closure guidance during the SoC architectural development phase
• Input and output of production floorplans in LEF/DEF and TCL formats
• Automatic pipeline insertion with advanced features:
• Edit timing closure parameters to optimize individual timing paths
• Automatically account for crossing between multiple frequency and voltage domains
• Automatically generate timing closure analysis reports
• Integrated with Synopsys’ Design Compiler Graphical and IC Compiler II and Cadence’s Genus and Innovus physical synthesis tool chains.