A real « softness » of mixed signal « hard » Virtual Components

There are some paradoxes in the SoC industry. Here is the crux of the matter for the analog and fast electrical parts: Innovative products involving SoC development often require usage of the latest technological process, together with a mix of high performance logic and analog functions. Reducing cost, time and risk of SoC designs requires the re-use of Virtual Components. Well, re-use clearly means that such functions have already been used and this is the paradox when analog parts are involved because analog functions are always different from one application to another one and they have to be retargeted and tuned for each process. The challenge then is to offer solutions coping with these constraints.