( DAC 00 Item 9 ) ---------------------------------------------- [ 7/13/00 ]
Subject: Mentor Renoir, View/Summit Innoveda, TransModeling, Escalade, XTEK
WHAT EVER HAPPEN TO ESDA?: A few years ago, ESDA tools ("Electronic System
Design Automation" -- a fancy acronym for state machine bubble diagram
graphical design entry tools) were all the rage with Summit, Escalade,
i-Logix, Speed Design, and Mentor's Renoir. I even held an ESDA Shootout
a few years ago at a DesignCon. The results were embarrassing and very
interesting at the same time. (Dig in the DeepChip archives if you want a
fun little read.) Now all the ESDA players have all but gone out of
business or mysteriously disappeared. Summit merged with ViewLogic to
create a company called "Innoveda" and the biggest impact that made in the
113 responses I've looked at in the DAC survey is complaints about their
pool noodle giveaway. Nobody discussed their EDA tools and most even forgot
the name of the company giving out the pool noodle! Mentor seems to have
won this war not by skill, but by attrition and customer apathy. At last
year's DAC, rumors flew around that Mentor was pulling all R&D out of
Renoir. This year, Mentor bought a failing Escalade and that was it. Into
this grey dead space, one new start-up, TransModeling has popped up. Only
two people noticed.
"Who on EARTH thought that a 6-foot-log foam "Fun Noodle" would be a
good giveaway?? I don't remember seeing any on my plane ride back home.
Everyone LOVED the volleyballs, but they didn't have a whole lot to do
with C-Level's product."
- an anon engineer
"To me the most ill-thought-out freebie was the chair from Altera or
the pool noodle from Innoveda. Both were useful things, but a pain in
the butt to carry around."
- an anon engineer
"B) Stuff I saw but did not get:
ViewLogic/Summit - those foam tubes for floating in a pool
DAC conference - yellow cooler bag"
- an anon engineer
"Worst: Xilinx Passed out the same stupid freebie it did last year
Most Ill Though Out: The Pool Noodle was cool but very hard to take
on a plane.
Best: I did not see anything that beat the Helicopter from last year."
- an anon engineer
"I thought those styrofoam "noodles" was kind of dumb, although I forget
who gave them out. By Wednesday, I had an irrational desire to get one
of C Level Design's volley balls, after seeing everyone else with them."
- an anon engineer
"We're using Escalade DesignBook 3.8c on Solaris 2.6. This has several
important bug fixes and I would recommend using it rather than the
previous versions. It was available for download from the Escalade
web site. However, in the wake of the recent acquisition of Escalade
by Mentor, the download page is no longer working. You will probably
have to call Escalade support, (408) 654-1600, to get the upgrade."
- John Vincent of Kodak (ESNUG 354 #11)
"TransModeling sells a tool that accepts diagrams like Summit's tool, and
outputs C++ for the CynApps tool. These diagrams are synthesized into
C++, which is then synthesized into Verilog, which is then synthesized
into gates.
X-tek seemed to be trying to do a similar tool to TransModeling, but
really didn't have much of a product yet. Their tool used Perl for the
top level simulation and used a very simple, single type of diagram
(e.g. nothing different between datapaths versus state machines)."
- an anon engineer
"3) Transmodelling
Distributed run-time simulation environment. You capture the
top-level in their GUI and assign various blocks to various
workstations. They handle the communication and synchronization.
Can handle event-driven interfaces but each block must advance with
the same timestep. Best performance is on cycle-based interfaces."
- Janick Bergeron of Qualis (VG 1.13)
"Novus Debussy
Like NC-SIM, the Debussy tool will be integrated into our simulation
flow over the summer. It is a wave viewer as well as debugging tool.
Most EDA venders were proud to announce that they recommend the Debussy
tool for their debugging environment. Some designers are currently
using this tool in [ co. location deleted]."
- an anon engineer
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