Timing Diagram Editors Add Mixed-Signal Capabilities

By DE Editors

SynaptiCAD (Blacksburg, VA)  announced its timing diagram editors from now support mixed-signal TRO waveform import, analog and digital waveform viewing, fast waveform state searching, and faster performance when displaying large files. New versions of DataSheet Pro and WaveFormer Pro, SynaptiCAD’s timing diagram editing and stimulus generation tools, are available on Windows, Linux, and Solaris.

The tools can now import binary TR0 waveform files generated by analog simulators such as Synopsys HSPICE and Nascentric’s OmegaSim during transient response simulation.

Both analog and digital waveforms from Agilent’s Mixed-Signal Oscilloscopes can be imported as timing diagrams into the timing diagram editors. The imported waveforms can then in turn be translated into test bench code or used to create stimulus for pattern generators and ATE equipment.

The new versions can generate VCD waveform files to be used to feed ATE stimulus flows. Import of extended VCD files was enhanced to recognize the input/output direction of the waveform data. In a related enhancement, the tool’s ability to generate tri-state enable signals for pattern generators was improved to recognize output data from the device under test as a condition to tri-state drivers from a pattern generator attached to bidirectional signals.

WaveFormer Pro is available on Linux, Solaris, and MS Windows (including MS Vista). A perpetual license sells for $2875. SynaptiCAD also sells DataSheet Pro (an upgrade to WaveFormer that includes the ability to embed linked OLE images into documents and supports editing multiple diagrams simultaneously), and Timing Diagrammer Pro (a reduced version of WaveFormer without the waveform translation features). For details on WaveViewer,  a free version capable of displaying results of analog and digital simulations as well as waveforms acquired from test equipment, is available for download,  go to SynaptiCAD.

Sources:  Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.