( DAC 00 Item 4 ) ---------------------------------------------- [ 7/13/00 ]
Subject: Datapath from Arcadia Mustang, Sycon, Synopsys Module Compiler
DATAPATH IS ALIVE & WELL: Although it takes a special kind of hardware
designer to really tweak screaming fast datapaths (usually they work in
graphics chip companies), the advent of behavioral synthesis and other
supposedly higher level types of design have (ironically) done nothing but
*helped* the datapath tool business! People like tried-and-true design
techniques they fully understand over flakey we'll-try-to-do-it-for-you
behavioral. Arcadia Mustang and Synopsys Module Compiler are the old hands
here, with Sycon being the new tenderfoot. Homegrown is big, too.
"Arcadia sells a placer for datapaths. It get path constraints from
Synopsys. It can now do a mix of datapath and random logic. Sycon
sells a tool similar to Arcadia's. They say it is good at identifying
critical structures in your netlist."
- an anon engineer
"I'm glad you didn't even mention Arcadia Mustang in your survey, John!
This company absolutely has no clue. The person giving the demo and
the AE that attended couldn't answer half my questions. It's no wonder
that even though they are the only player in this space, barely anybody
is using them. People from other companies I've talked to wrote their
own tools to do datapaths, because they recognize that Arcadia is going
about this the WRONG WAY!"
- an anon engineer
"At the New Orleans DAC last year, we investigated Meropa (the precursor
to get2chip) and was pretty impressed with their technology. At that
time, Meropa included Behavioral Compiler style synthesis with Synopsys
Module Compiler style optimizations. For throughput of single designs,
which we do a bunch of, this was a key feature. Unfortunately, we did
not get to directly evaluate Meropa, because we moved our entire chip
flow to Module Compiler because it's one of the few EDA tools out there
that works as advertised."
- an anon engineer
"Fortunately, we have not had to enter the Physical Synthesis arena yet,
but my bet is on Synopsys, simply because they are the Great White Whale
and there is no Captain Ahab. I'll tell you John, we're struggling to
figure out how much of this Physical Synthesis stuff is hype and how
much is reality. Last year we completed a trial place and route of a
1M gate chip synthesized with DC and Module Compiler running 150MHz in
0.35u tech. With all the hype, we thought we were screwed. When it
came back from our vendor, we saw 20 some odd nets out with the worst
being less than 1 ns out. We were told by everyone that running so fast
at 0.35u would put us in spin hell, but that's not what happened. Maybe
when we get to 0.25, we will get hit. The truth is out there, and we
need to find it fast!"
- an anon engineer
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