( ESNUG 457 Item 2 ) -------------------------------------------- [10/05/06]
Subject: At one time Magma had R&D for ATPG and BIST, but later lost them
> rumor: Do you know any actual Magma ATPG and memory BIST users? They
> made a big noise about these 1-2 years ago, but lately the Magma
> test people have disappeared from test conferences & workshops,
> and I don't know anyone who knows anyone using Magma test tools.
>
> fact: Unknown. To be honest, I can't think of one actual Magma test
> user. I know plenty of Synopsys and Mentor test users, with a
> few Cadence guys thrown in plus an occassional LogicVision user,
> but I can't think of one Magma test user. I do have one source
> who reports that Magma R&D people don't seem to be at the test
> conferences & workshops, though.
>
> - from http://www.deepchip.com/gadfly/gad083006.html
From: Howard Landman <hlandman=user domain=ageia spot mom>
Hey John,
We are a Magma MBIST user, but we might be the only one. We were a beta
site for the tool last year, and had pretty much everything implemented
when Magma cancelled the product in January. We decided to leave it in.
So, I'm taping out with a non-existent, not-officially-supported piece
of SW. The unofficial Magma support has been pretty good and we like the
product MUCH better than Mentor's (which, for example, uses blocking and
non-blocking assignments wrongly in the generated code). We had to
write a few scripts around it, and fix one problem with the generated
RTL. But everything simulates properly, control is straightforward, we
can test multiple memories in parallel, the gate count is smaller than
before, and performance impact is reasonable. All in all, not too painful.
I've been getting some queries from Magma people lately about "how we did
it", so I suspect they're considering reviving the product. Ask Milan. If
they don't do it soon, we'll have silicon back before the launch. If they
do revive it, we'd certainly consider using it on our next project as well.
If you hear of anyone else using this stuff, I'd be surprised, but I'd
love to know who else is using it.
- Howard Landman
Ageia Technologies Mountain View, CA
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: [ A Little Bird ]
Hi, John,
Magma did hire a guy to spearhead their test strategy (including ATPG and
BIST), evangelize it and try to coordinate all the R&D efforts into
something resembling a coherent strategy. This was about 2-2.5 years ago
now. It became evident after about 12-18 months of trying to get this
effort going at Magma that it was never going to happen, so he jumped ship
to Synopsys as a test AE for one of their large accounts, which speaks to
your other rumor -- you are not tainted in SNPS' eyes if you were at Magma,
at least not circa 12 months ago. I saw the guy at DAC and he's still at
SNPS working for the same large account. Magma's test products have never
materialized to my knowledge.
- [ A Little Bird ]
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: [ Chicken Man ]
Hi, John,
Magma had test but cancelled it. I heard it was due to some of the key
test R&D programmers leaving Magma. Whether this was voluntary or not,
I haven't a clue.
- [ Chicken Man ]
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