( ESNUG 461 Item 2 ) -------------------------------------------- [01/31/07]
Subject: Company considers unifying Cadence/Synopsys/Mentor to one vendor
From: Marshall Johnson <mjohnson=user domain=advaoptical not balm>
Hi, John,
Thought I would ask you for an opinion from your ESNUG readers.
We are looking at unifying tools here at my company. All of our designs at
present are FPGAs (about 40 users), but we are closing in on volumes that
might warrant conversions to ASICS.
At our 7 engineering sites the biggest tool issue sticking point is going
to be simulation.
- At 1 US site their tools are Cadence Incisive (mixed language, PSL)
but the designers are all Verilog only. All these designers have
an ASIC background. (1/4 of total user base)
- At another US site, their tools are Synopsys VCS and could up grade
to MX but today it is Verilog only. They're looking at System
Verilog but that is available today is what comes with VCS. All
these designers have an ASIC background. (1/4 of total user base)
- At 4 European and 1 Chinese sites the tools are ModelSim VHDL only.
Mostly PE, some SE no Questa or anything like that, no assertion
experience. Roughly 25% of these have an ASIC Background; the rest
are board designers who transitioned. (1/2 of the total user base)
And there's nothing like the top 3 vendors and everyone pulling different
directions when you have the job of unification this calendar year.
The impressions I have are: (please correct me if I am wrong)
- The industry generally moving away from PSL and more towards System
Verilog. New adoptions are more System Verilog.
- Synopsys/Cadence are ahead of ModelSim (Questa) in terms of R&D, with
the edge to Synopsys.
- ModelSim (specifically Questa) has a plus in that it uses only one
kernel so it is really the same tool regardless of platform. Cadence
NC-Sim maybe a little nicer than VCS-MX as a mixed language simulator.
- I'm in a pretty unwinable situation politically. :(
Anyhow, some thoughts or suggestions from your readers on what I should (or
should not) do to unify under one vendor would be much appreciated. I'd
also like to know if I should even try to unify under one vendor. Ideas?
- Marshall Johnson
Adva Optical Networking Norcross, GA
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