( ESNUG 307 Item 7 ) --------------------------------------------- [12/16/98]
Subject: ( ESNUG 306 #10 ) Summit's "Visual HDL" vs. Escalade's "DesignBook"
> We have an internal debate going on between buying Summit Design's
> Visual HDL vs. Escalade's DesignBook. What we are looking for is a
> productivity improvement over hand writing VHDL and Verilog code. We
> also would like a tool to help us reuse and modify legacy code.
>
> Do you have any opinions on these tools?
>
> - Michael Patti
> Sarnoff Corporation Princeton, NJ
From: [ Ned Flanders from "The Simpsons" ]
John,
There is no one right answer for everybody. It really depends on your
needs today, where you are heading and where you think each company is
heading. We also had quite a bit of internal debate over these two tools.
Generally, users with with HDL experience favored Summit because it
supports all valid language constructs and its HDL import capabilities.
Inexperienced users were sold on Escalade's ModuleWare libraries along
with the user interface and the features in their state machine editor
and design verification tools. The lack of import capability and full
language support were of lesser concern, since we do not have a lot of
legacy HDL code we need to import. Also their Knowledge Extraction
technology seems very promising. Another benefit of Escalade's approach
is that it is language neutral so it is easy to output either language,
allowing experimenting to see which gives the best result. (Sometimes
it is surprising how much difference that can make.)
Due to my company's sensitivities, please keep me anonymous in all uses
of this note!
- [ Ned Flanders from "The Simpsons" ]
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From: Fazel Taslimi <ftaslimi@lucent.com>
john,
i have been using escalade for about 2 yrs now. it is a great tool. i
haven't seen anything like it. i have played with summit and (when they
were in business) speedchart. but nothing really stacks up to designbook
from escalade. summit is not very easy to learn and it also not
language independent like designbook is. the equations that you have to
put in has to be either in VHDL or Verilog syntax. about 6 months ago i
was involved in the design of two complex (40k each) fpgas. There were 3
of us on the job. i was the only one with VHDL background the other two
didn't have VHDL background. we took the 2 day training class on the tool
and after that we started designing. we were the first group in Lucent to
have finished our design a head of time. that was mainly due to use of
designbook. it really boosted our productivity (three to four times). due
to our success story the tool is getting attention within Lucent. the other
thing i should mention is the support that i get from these folks, it is
just great. because some of our divisions standardized on summit, we have
an internal summit-related web site. from the discussions on that web site,
i think some of these divisions will be changing over to escalade. summit
has grown too big, they don't support you all that well. escalade is small
and treats you like gold. to sum it up you wouldn't go wrong if you choose
designbook as your graphical entry tool.
- Fazel Taslimi
Lucent Murray Hill, New Jersey
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From: "Ella van Gool" <ella_translogic@csi.com>
John,
I know this might not exactly be the kind of answer you're looking for
concerning comparing Summit & Escalade, but there are multiple reasons to
at least have a look:
- a number of US and foreign companies have standarised on our option
(Translogic's EASE) above Summit, Renoir and Escalade,
- we offer 80% of the Summit/Renoir/Escalade functionality for 20% of
their price
- we are, for more than 10 years, a small and privately held company,
therefore very flexible
I apologize for this unsolicited mail, but hope it will add to your
due diligence in examining similar tools.
- Ella van Gool
VP & General Manager
Translogic USA Corp. Hollister, CA
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