Siemens Digital Industries Software has announced that Alps Alpine used Siemens’ Symphony platform for mixed-signal applications when developing and verifying its newest, functionally safe capacitance detection integrated circuit. Alps Alpine’s new offering enables proximity, touch, and spatial gesture detection across a wide range of human-machine interface systems in demanding applications such as the automotive and smart device spaces.
Using Siemens’ Symphony platform, Alps Alpine quickly achieved silicon accurate simulation for its touch detection IC, increasing functional verification productivity by 5x. This reduction of verification cycles facilitated rapid attainment of time-to-market goals for the customer.
“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. Siemens’ Symphony platform helped us to rapidly and successfully design and verify our design’s complex operations and functionality. The Symphony platform’s exceptional performance, together with its user-friendly interface, led to greater adoption among our verification teams, ultimately resulting in a 5x increase in productivity.“