Jean Oudinot,Caroline Vaganay,Michel Robbe, Patrick Radja
Mentor Graphics Anacad/Mentor Graphics and Matra Nortel Commmunications

The paper describes the validation of a new methodology using VHDL-AMS on a STMicroelectronics hard-disk drive read/write channel design called "Giotto". The new mixed-signal simulation environment ADVance MS supporting multi-language from Mentor Graphics was used. The objective was to compare the new development of a known circuit designed by current tools. The results showed clearly the great benefice of VHDL-AMS over the former proprietary language HDL-A, and ADVance MS over Eldo-Verilog. The speed performance gain was over 90%. Also developing models with VHDL-AMS was much easier and more efficient. This new methodology is now ready to be adopted by ST for their new generation hard-disk designs.