( ESNUG 559 Item 1 ) -------------------------------------------- [04/22/16]
Subject: Sanjiv on High Level Synthesis (HLS), C-based design, and Calypto
DAC'15 Troublemakers Panel in San Francisco, CA
Cooley: Sanjiv, high level synthesis and C-based synthesis? That
was a hot topic... like 5 years ago. Actually it was big fight
back then between Mentor Catapult and Forte and Cadence C2Silicon
and Synfora. Now it has kind of dried up.
Is your Catapult tool a solution looking for a problem to solve?
Sanjiv: That's a good question. I think we had a lot of marketing
battles 5 years ago. And now we are at the fun stage of actually
getting chips designed in large quantities.
Just right before this panel, I kicked off a presentation by
NVIDIA, where they talked about all the video components in their
new Tegra X1 chip, that were designed with our Catapult high
level synthesis tool.
So if you look at the NVIDIA shield, for example, that just came
out with streaming 4K -- all of the 4K processing was done - was
designed with C-based high level synthesis. And then later today
I will be kicking off a presentation from Qualcomm, where they're
also designing parts of their Snapdragon with Catapult high level
synthesis. So it's come to the phase now where HLS technology
has matured.
High level synthesis is good for algorithmic blocks. But these
algorithmic blocks are getting much more complex. And they are
becoming much more important on your chips. So companies like
NVIDIA and Qualcom and Samsung are bringing a HLS into their
flows. And they feel that they can't be competitive in the long
term without having high level synthesis.
Cooley: Why isn't Aart selling in that space? He has the same
customers.
Sanjiv: It's a question you should ask Aart.
Cooley: Ok, he's not here.
Hogan: Another, well, you could ask the question of "who's made
the most money off behavioral since its high level synthesis,
right? So I'd argue that AutoESL is the only one that ever made
an money, right?
Cooley: Anirudh, are you making any money in high level synthesis?
Anirudh: Yes, so I think Cadence bought Forte last year combined
with C-to-Silicon.
Cooley: Yeah, the rumor is you replaced C-to-Silicon completely
with Forte internally.
Anirudh: No, I think the two teams are combined. And I think if
I remember their numbers right, Cadence is still the dominant
supplier in high level synthesis in terms of market share. And
it is profitable. It's not a very big business, but it is a
profitable business.
Cooley: Gary, who's telling the truth here?
Gary: Who's the largest?
Cooley: Yeah
Gary: Oh, it's Cadence.
Cooley: By a lot?
Gary: As far as adopting new flows, Calypto really is entering
the market. I mean they haven't even gotten close to hitting
any curve yet. If I were a designer, I would prefer the Calypto
tool. But that Forte tool's been around for a long time.
Cooley: Sanjiv.
Sanjiv: Yes, sir.
Cooley: Is Calypto part of Mentor or not?
Sanjiv: Well, Mentor is a part of Calypto. Mentor is a big share
holder. But Calypto is an independent company. We have other
shareholders also.
Cooley: So, Wally and Greg report to you regularly.
Sanjiv: No, no they own a piece of Calypto. They own a piece of
Calypto. And we are an independent company with our own sales
force. We have a board that includes non-Mentor members and we
operate...
Cooley: Like one of non-Mentor board member?
Sanjiv: We have well two. Two out of four.
Cooley: Jim, is he speaking the truth?
Hogan: Yeah, well if you if you read the report it's a wholly-
owned subsidiary, right? So when you own that much of a
company, like how Mentor does, you have consolidate their
earnings and losses, right?
Sanjiv: It's the majority owned subsidiary.
Hogan: Yeah a majority owned-subsidiary. So I believe Calypto
has their own channel. I believe they have their own
marketing, their own R&D. But technically it's a subsidiary.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Related Articles
Sanjiv on High Level Synthesis (HLS), C-based design, and Calypto
Anirudh on CDNS Innovus, SNPS ICC2, Atoptech, MENT Olympus PnR
Amit on the SPICE wars, fast vs. pure, and SPICE user survey data
Joe Sawicki on Mentor's relationship with Carl Icahn this year
Why CDNS and MENT didn't bother to bid on the Atrenta acquisition
Join
Index
Next->Item
|
|
