RedHawk-NX was Apache Design Solutions’ 2009 full-chip dynamic power-integrity analysis and signoff product. It was designed to analyze large chip designs using hierarchical dynamic analysis, power-grid mesh recognition and reuse, and multi-core processing. Apache said it targeted designs of up to 500 million gates; that launch-era figure describes the product’s stated capacity, not its current availability.
What RedHawk-NX did
Apache announced RedHawk-NX on January 7, 2009, as the third generation of its RedHawk tools, following RedHawk-SD in 2002 and RedHawk-EV in 2005. The software analyzed dynamic power integrity across a chip and supported signoff work, including the assessment of voltage drop and power-related noise. Apache positioned the release for increasingly complex CPUs, GPUs, NPUs and designs with large memory content. EDN’s launch coverage reported a target capacity of up to 500 million gates.
At signoff, engineers need to understand how changing workloads affect a design’s power network, rather than relying only on a static view. RedHawk-NX’s launch announcement described a set of techniques intended to make that dynamic analysis practical at full-chip scale.
How its three main technologies worked
Hierarchical Dynamic analysis
Hierarchical Dynamic analysis supported bottom-up analysis using white-box and gray-box abstractions. Apache said white-box mode retained the signoff accuracy of flattened analysis, while gray-box mode increased capacity. The approach also supported encrypted dynamic-power views from IP providers, allowing those blocks to be included in full-chip signoff without exposing their internal implementation.
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Mesh Pattern Recognition and reuse
Mesh Pattern Recognition (MPR) detected regular patterns in power and ground networks and reused analysis data. Apache said this reduced physical database-memory requirements, including for designs with complex redistribution layers, dense multilayer grids and substantial memory content. Apache reported a 2–3× reduction in database memory footprint in 2009; the figure is a vendor-reported result, not an independently established benchmark.
Multi-core processing
The multi-core architecture was intended to accelerate transient solving within an existing computing environment. Apache said RedHawk-NX could scale to designs with up to one billion nodes and reported 2–3× runtime improvement for dynamic transient simulation and MTCMOS rush-current analysis. Those performance figures were reported by Apache in 2009 for the named workloads; they should not be read as a general guarantee for every design or computing setup.
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Reported capacity and performance
| Launch-era claim | What it referred to | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 500 million gates | Target design size | Apache Design Solutions, 2009 |
| Up to one billion nodes | Design scale supported by multi-core transient solving | Apache Design Solutions, 2009 |
| 2–3× lower database memory footprint | Mesh Pattern Recognition and data reuse | Apache Design Solutions, 2009; vendor-reported |
| 2–3× runtime improvement | Dynamic transient simulation and MTCMOS rush-current analysis | Apache Design Solutions, 2009; vendor-reported workload claim |
AMD’s Graphics Products Group provided one customer example in the launch material. Its vice president of engineering, Jean Boufarhat, said RedHawk-NX enabled dynamic power-noise analysis on its largest design, which had more than 750 million nodes. That reported design size is a specific customer example, not a revised general capacity claim for the product.
Which companies used RedHawk-NX?
- Realtek selected it for full-chip dynamic power-integrity and IR-drop analysis, as well as dynamic power signoff in mixed-signal IC designs.
- Aptina adopted it to analyze, optimize and sign off CMOS image-sensor designs. Aptina also used Totem-MMX for transistor-level analysis of analog arrays.
- PLX Technology adopted RedHawk-NX and PakSi-E for power analysis, signoff and exploration of power-grid design scenarios.
Availability and its relationship to later RedHawk tools
At launch, RedHawk-NX was scheduled for Q1 2009 availability as a no-cost upgrade for active RedHawk-EV customers, according to EDN. That was a historical upgrade condition; it does not establish that RedHawk-NX can be obtained today. The cited material does not establish current standalone availability.
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- Supports (2) PCI E 6plus2pin Connectors. Active (PFC) Power Factor Correction, MTBF: 100,000 hours
- Industry Grade Protections: (OPP) Over Power Protection, (OVP) Over Voltage Protection, (SCP) Short Circuit Protection
- High Quality Components
Later products such as RedHawk-3DX and RedHawk-SC belong to the subsequent evolution of the product family, not the 2009 NX release. Their capabilities and availability should not be attributed to RedHawk-NX. Ansys RedHawk-SC and Ansys RedHawk-3DX are later family references, not evidence that the old NX product remains available.
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