( ESNUG 551 Item 1 ) -------------------------------------------- [06/02/15]
Subject: 317 engineers surveyed on general SPICE use & SPICE requirements
> Now the CDNS/BDA lawsuit is settled and both companies' newly announced
> SPICE simulators have had 6 months to harden, for 2014 I predict the
> following shakeups in the SPICE market with...
>
> - Amit Gupta of Solido Design
> http://www.deepchip.com/items/0537-07.html
From: [ Amit Gupta of Solido Design ]
Hi, John,
A little over 15 months ago I wrote these SPICE predictions (above). Since
then, to get concrete data on how things were really going in SPICE use and
variation analysis, I contracted an external survey.
317 designers and managers responded. Here's what the customers reported
about their general SPICE use and SPICE requirements.
"Which types of design does your group do?"
Analog/Mixed-Signal: :################################ 65%
Full Custom Digital: :######################### 51%
Std Cell: :#################### 41%
Memory: :############### 30%
RF: :############ 24%
On average, we found that each group was typically doing 2 different types
of design. That is, they'd often do both AMS and full custom designs.
"How many different SPICE vendors does your group use?"
In addition, it's common (~60%) for design groups to use SPICE simulators
from at least 2 different SPICE vendors. This is because of two reasons:
- Not all SPICE is equal. Just because a particular SPICE
simulator simulates memory designs well, it does not mean
it can simulate AMS designs well.
- Keep their options open. A number of the major SPICE buyers
are acutely aware of the dangers of being locked into only
one SPICE vendor. It's best to all have 2nd source vendors.
And, of course, there are the Top Tier IDM's and fabs who buy every SPICE
simulator that exists. These are the rare 0.7% 5 vendors users above.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
> TREND #3: NUMBER OF SPICE RUNS ARE INCREASING 10X to 1,000,000X
>
> Just for variation issues, we are seeing:
>
> - PVT corner analysis: 100's-1,000's simulations...
> - 3-sigma design: 3000 simulations...
> - 4- to 6-sigma designs: millions to billions of simulations...
>
> We often see customers with LSF clusters running 100's to 1000's of
> SPICE simulator licenses to parallelize SPICE simulation runs...
>
> - from http://www.deepchip.com/items/0537-07.html
I'm happy to see hard data confirming what I had predicted 15 months ago
that the number of SPICE licenses being used is going up -- and that this
will consequently cause more SPICE evals to happen.
"Does your group plan to evaluate/add any new
SPICE simulators within the next 12 months?"
Yes: :############# 26%
No: :##################################### 74%
This comes from the new 16/14/10 nm nodes needing lots of SPICE work, plus
SNPS acquiring Magma, MENT acquiring BDA (& Tanner), plus the CDNS/BDA
lawsuit being settled plus the new ultra-low power nodes at 45/28/16 nm; all
make for a perfect storm of increased SPICE demand added to a legal
unfettering of the SPICE vendors.
This opens up big opportunities for the SPICE simulator vendors with the
best technology, and is driving the SPICE vendors to try to make their tools
stickier. I expect analysis and debug will become more of a need, too.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
"MORE OF EVERYTHING, PLEASE"
> One of the things we're seeing with customer retooling is that they've
> added a new requirement above the traditional "more speed, more capacity,
> and more accuracy" requests...
>
> - from http://www.deepchip.com/items/0537-07.html
Our survey results had a minor surprise: the users said that SPICE capacity
was not a "must have" compared to accuracy and speed.
"What are the 2 most important requirements
of a SPICE simulator for your designs?"
The fact that accuracy -- especially having their SPICE results correlate
with silicon -- and more speed were both in high demand wasn't a surprise.
One wildcard was how "SPICE foundry models & analysis support" had tied for
#1 against "accuracy". But it makes sense when you think about it. Why
have SPICE runs if they don't match your final fabbed chips?
- Amit Gupta
Solido DA Saskatoon, Canada
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Related Articles:
317 engineers surveyed on general SPICE use & SPICE requirements
317 engineers on today's SPICE use vs. their future SPICE use
And the variation part of Amit's 317 engineer SPICE survey...
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