( ESNUG 542 Item 8 ) -------------------------------------------- [06/24/14]
Subject: Intel, 7 PnR users, Atrenta, Mac, Aart, Nimbic, ProPlus, TSMC
POST-DAC RECOVERY: Here's the latest news & rumors I've heard about EDA and
the fabs since DAC. Feel free to comment/correct/scold anything!
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- INTEL OUTS ITSELF AT DAC: For the past 2 decades the #1 rule in EDA
was Thou-Shalt-NOT-Ever-Publically-Admit-Intel-Is-Your-Customer-EVER.
And we're not talking a gentleman's wink-wink, nod-nod "no", but a
scorched earth OUR-LAWYERS-WILL-CRUSH-YOUR-BONES-AND-BURY-YOU NO from
the "only the paranoid survive" Intel.
 
But now the Intel Custom Foundry wants to start selling some of its
juicy excess 14 nm capacity before TSMC and GF figure out the recipe
for 14 nm themselves. So suddenly, now the ICF people are looking to
quickly build an EDA and IP ecosystem -- which means Intel asking
Synopsys/Cadence/Mentor/Apache/etc. to now chat-up how their EDA tools
work "so nicely" with Intel 14 nm Tri-Gates. Total policy reversal!
Holy crap! This is the EDA equivalent of when the USSR suddenly took
down the Berlin Wall which separated East Germany from West Germany.
This will radically change chip design and fab for years to come.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
I did a quick & dirty perception audit of 7 hands-on PnR users on
what they thought of ICC vs. EDI vs. Atop vs. Olympus:
- Three said they used IC Compiler for legacy reasons and
would probably stick with it. "Why fix what ain't broke?"
- Five said that all 4 PnR tools were roughly equivalent
now -- for designs of 1 M instances (or less) WHO drove
the PnR tool was more important than WHICH PnR tool used.
- One highly recommended Atoptech. "It's about efficiency.
We consistantly get good results with ATOP on a mix of
different design styles without having to hand hold it."
- Three were happy to hear about CDNS Project Novus and how
it'll beat ICC II. "It's good to hear that CDNS R&D wasn't
loafing around" and "We want to see more about it".
- All seven users completely doubted Aart's ICC-II-will-be-10X
faster/better/happier/whatever claims. "2X or 3X, OK, that
I'd believe. But 10X??? That's pure Marketing B.S."
- Three said Wally adding the Oasys RealTime RTL Floorplanner
moved Sierra Olympus-SoC out from being "behind" to now
being "on par" with ICC/EDI/Atoptech.
- And one user wished for the good olde Magma days to return.
"I'd kill for a 16 nm rev of Talus to run on my blocks."
Keep in mind this is just PnR user street talk, NOT benchmarks, etc.
What I count more is what the bulk of the users later say when I do
my annual DAC "Best Of" Census in September.
Also know it's common to use two PnR tools on the same chip. For
example, Atoptech/Sierra/Magma on blocks, and then ICC/EDI for the
top level -- which means no one PnR tool wins everything overall.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Rumors that Atrenta is "just about to be acquired" has flared up
yet again. This time two different spies have reported this.
  
Both spies have said it was Cadence looking to buy; one spy reports
that the bid was for $145 million and he thinks Atrenta's 2013 income
was $46 million; the second spy says $180 million and $60 revenues.
(Funny that both see a 3x multiple.) Either way, both agreed that
Ajoy turned down the offer(s) because ATRT could make more in an IPO.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- I finally got visual confirmation of an old ESNUG 509 #6 rumor that,
yes, Mike McNamara, the old CDNS C-to-Silicon synth marketing bigwig
is using Forte Cynthesizer to make USB IP. Funny how sides change!
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- And, yes, exactly as my spies predicted 2 months ago in ESNUG 538 #10,
Aart de Geus was only at DAC for DAC Monday -- because he was at the
Brussels IMEC Forum for the rest of the DAC week! Told ya so!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN QUOTES:
"They paid too little!"
- Raul Compansano on MENT buying his Nimbic.
"We paid too much!"
- Wally Rhines on his MENT buying Nimbic.
Although the official numbers were never released, word on the street
is MENT paid $7 to $8 million for a Nimbic that earned $2.5 million
annually, making a multiple of 2.8X to 3.2X.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- After his infamous "I'm a Bitcoin billionare" April Fool's joke of
ESNUG 538 #5, Mike Dini reports his company's servers have been under
steady break-in attacks from IP addresses inside Russia and China.
  
"I guess those fools think they'll get my Bitcoin billions! Ha!,"
laughs Mike. "We have layers of firewalls. My IT guys swats these
break-in attempts like a horse swatting flies. What chumps!"
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN SNOOP: The former ProPlus North American sales account manager
Zdzislaw Marcisz was now seen working at Solido. The former ProPlus
marketing guy Amit Nanda is now at Silvaco. What's up at ProPlus?
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN FACT:
Design Automation & Test in Europe (DATE) conference attendance
2005: ########################## 3895
2006: ############################### 4651
2007: ################################# 4922
2008: ############################### 4670
2009: ################# 2476
2010: ############# 1925
2011: ############### 2290
2012: ############### 2200
2013: ########### 1600
2014: ########## 1450
Most Americans describe DATE as Europe's DAC. This year DATE 2014
was held in March in Dresden, Germany.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- I heard last week the CDNS-Jasper merger finally got approved by
FTC. The quiet gossip is it got delayed by having to do a full
Hart-Scott-Rodino anti-trust review. No biggie because Jasper has
competition everywhere. My congrats to Kathryn for a $146 million
(net) deal -- with $28 million revenue that's a 5X multiple. Wow!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Duolog got acquired by ARM. Doulog services was based in Romania
and worked primarily on TI OMAP. Made an estimated at $3.5 million
per year, but then all of IT OMAP died. Duolog product is based in
Ireland and works on Socrates, an RTL debug/IP environment. It also
makes estimated $3.5 million. Word is they got 2x to 3x for only
the Socrates product, meaning a sale price of $7 to $10 million.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- A year ago CDNS Tempus was the new challenger to Aart's Primetime
monopoly. Now, through my spies and indiscreet connections, I've
found out that TI, Freescale, Renesas, NXP, Hitachi use Tempus.
  
Plus recently LG (ESNUG 541 #3) and, on my DAC Troublemaker Panel,
Anirudh openly leaked "Broadcom uses Tempus for 14/16 nm flows."
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- Speaking of ARM, the one big announcement Aart's marketing people
did 4 days before DAC was his new DesignWare ARC EM5D and EM7D cores:
32-bit FPU's, 72-bit accumulators, "100 new DSP instructions", Q31
and Q15 data types, "7 uW/MHz on 40-nm." C/C++ compiler included.
SNPS is aggressively chasing Simon Segars' cheaper uP IP seats here.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN QUOTES:
"Hey, Kathryn, what do you plan to do now now that Cadence has
bought Jasper?"
- Dean Drako to Kathryn Kranen
"Oh, I'll stay there as long as I'm learning and contributing."
- Kathryn Kranen to Dean Drako
"So... what do you plan to do 2 weeks after joining Cadence?"
- Dean Drako to Kathryn Kranen
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- Now that Andrew Yang has officially left, the word is Ansys/Apache
is still under internal chaos. According to one ex-Apache source:
"Everyone's afraid there."
  
Whether CDNS Voltus can use this temporary chaos to gain a foothold
against the Redhawk IR-drop/EM monopoly is anyone's guess. There's
big juicy base of Redhawk users up for grabs there!
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- FUN QUOTE
"Calypto snagged Google as a customer PLUS they got GOOG
to publically speak about it in their DAC booth???
How the %#*& did Sanjiv pull that one off???"
- An Anon EDA Vendor
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
- D'OH!: Word is that the DAC Monday keynote by TSMC bigwig Cliff Hou
was a major success. He drew a large crowd and his speech was full
of interesting data and TSMC insights that engineers loved.
  
The one big glaring mistake was out of all 5 keynotes given at this
DAC, Cliff's killer speech was the only one NOT video tapped! D'oh!
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And again, feel free to comment/correct/scold/question anything you see here
by just emailing me directly. And, yes, you'll be ANONYMOUS!
- John Cooley
DeepChip.com Holliston, MA
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