( ESNUG 275 Item 5 ) --------------------------------------------- [12/17/97]
Subject: (ESNUG 271 #0) Learning Japanese Vs. Learning Behavioral Compiler
> ... I never knew how much of a slave to English I was until I tried to
> learn and understand the Japanese language. It hurt! It made no sense
> to me, constantly keeping track and chasing down those little words like
> "na", "ga", "wa", "no", "yo" that are sprinkled around Japanese sentances
> and that have no direct English translation whatsoever! Ugh. At night I
> would dream that I had died, gone to Hell and all the demons spoke Japanese
> to me as they tormented me. ...
>
> Last week I just finished taking a week-long course in behavioral synthesis.
> Oh, and it was simply brutal! The unnatural, sadistic things they do
> with clocking statements and loops on your source HDL defies any human
> RTL-style synthesis understanding. To make matters worst, for Synopsys old
> timers like myself, you have to do all sorts of unlearning and relearning
> on the concept (and even catch-phrase) level, too! Ugh. And all that
> additional Designware Developer bullshit obfuscates the learning process
> so much so it makes IRS tax codes seem easy, logical and friendly! Ugh!
>
> - John Cooley
> the ESNUG guy
From: Hesham El Adly <hesham@cae.ca>
Hi John,
I have to disagree partially with your statement comparing the complexity of
learning BC vs. learning Japanese.
I just presented a paper on applying BC to high performance designs at Japan
SNUG. So as an experienced BC user and as a "gaijan" returning from Japan,
a few comments:
On targeting high performance datapaths, use BC's BOA/BRT. Designers can
code in RTL when targeting BOA/BRT -- just let the tool perform the
arithmetic transforms and register placement. BOA/BRT does not require much
time to learn for RTL designers. Coding for BC's scheduler does require a
lot of effort to adjust to its required "style". BCView at least helps on
understanding the results of scheduling.
If you use DesignWare Developer, and designers must when targeting high
quality schedules, taking up Japanese is probably easier and will do more
for one's career.
Synopsys must put some resources into improving DW Developer -- it's tedious,
hard to use, and has limited reporting. I can almost guarantee that a
designer will run into problems using this beast.
As a long time BC user, I cannot see BC's scheduler being successful
commercially without Developer becoming automated. If Synopsys does not
improve Developer, perhaps they should simply offer BOA/BRT as part of
DC Expert and drop BC's scheduler.
- Hesham El-Adly
CAE Electronics Ltd., Quebec, Canada
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