( DAC 12 Item 10 ) ---------------------------------------------- [10/18/12]
Subject: ICM Zero Time Sync, ClioSoft Visual DIFF, MethodICs, DesignSync
I WANT IT YESTERDAY: In the ever "exciting" world of design data management,
users at DAC noticed the new "Zero Time Sync" part of IC Manage. Broadcom
did a check-out of a messy 77,000 file 2.5 GB workspace in 11 min; and a
check-in of a 16 GB analog design evironment in 5 min! See ESNUG 505 #5.
On the fun juicy gossip side, while at DAC, Altera presented a paper about
using MethodICs for DM. Then, 2 months later, IC Manage puts out a press
release citing Altera as a new customer. That is, it appears that Altera
has dumped MethodICs for IC Manage! (Ouch!)
The ClioSoft fans at this DAC cited how they liked their Visual DIFF tool;
even though it was announced last year.
Not one user commented about Dassault DesignSync this year.
"What were the 3 or 4 most INTERESTING specific tools you
saw at DAC this year? WHY did they interest you?"
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The IC Manage cached data management system is interresting to us
because it offers fast ("Zero Time Sync") updates to remote sites.
It only needs to update the small amount of data changed on an
instant basis. We need that.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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We were very interested in looking at IC Manage Views for three reasons:
- Disc space reduction,
- "Zero Time Sync" for workspaces, and
- EDA tool use optimization (instant sync of tool installs.)
IC Manage says there are no changes or special requirements to our
operating system and disk environment to use IC Manage Views. The
only dependency is having RedHat 5 or newer available. We still
need to validate this claim.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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We currently use IC Manage GDP for analog design management. We have
several projects across multiple sites, and their GDP keeps our
projects in sync and consistent. Otherwise it's would be a nightmare.
Our policy is that everyone's design data must be checked in to be
used. It's a requirement. By setting up every analog project in
IC Manage, we capture all the data and have no copies in home accounts.
This keeps our data locked up and safe - we don't have to worry if an
employee leaves the company, because all his data is still in the
secure depot.
Armor security. We recently tested GDP's "Armor" security feature.
Armor enhances IC Manage's existing "file access" security with
"action access" security. Armor adds granularity and access rights
per user, so you can just give a subset of the depot to the designated
user and allow certain actions, e.g. Read, Write and Additions. It
lets us control who can create and modify releases.
We like Armor and are planning to roll it out in next few months.
I view it as a large step forward in ensuring mistakes are not made.
IC Manage GDP has a GUI, and also allows you to script via a command
line. Usually, our designers use the GUI, because it is easy and
familiar - like the Cadence Library manager, except with built-in
revision control.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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I am looking into IC Manage Design Management with Cadence Encounter
for managing the Open Access database for our digital designs. My
comments are based on a demo and discussion - I have not personally
done a hands-on evaluation yet.
My company already uses IC Manage for analog design. But our chips
have both analog and digital elements, so it is important for both
design teams to be able to view each other's designs to see if the
interface interconnectivity is placed correctly. Both design teams
use a joint analog-digital open access database and GDP can manage
that - that is why I would like to use IC Manage GDP.
They have an IC Manage library viewer for Virtuoso, where you can
check-in, check-out and unlock/lock directly from the designer
workspace.
However, Cadence Encounter doesn't currently support a direct data
management interface like Cadence Virtuoso does, so to access
IC Manage's DM features such as check-in, check-out, unlock/lock,
submitting changes, history viewing, and branch analysis, you must
step out of the Encounter environment to use an IC Manage shell
with command line tools or IC Manage's visual GUI.
I would like to see a direct IC Manage-Encounter plug-in to lock,
unlock, and submit changes directly from the Encounter environment.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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IC Manage's GDP looks like an interesting option for design data
management.
We have started a technical evaluation to analyze it in more detail.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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IC Manage
Used IC Manage GDP/DM for 2+ yrs.
Pros:
- Very solid platform for data management and IP distribution.
- Very flexible to and ease to make snapshot/release to
enable IP reuse.
- Simple way to retrieve old data through configure file.
- Integration with Cadence is pretty seamless.
Cons:
May take a bit longer than expect syncing data if there are multiple
design centers across continents. Haven't try out their "storage
acceleration" ("Zero Time Sync"). Maybe it'll improve latency.
Some of the tools that use to be add-on to Cadence LibMgr don't work
properly with ICM LibMgr. There are still bugs that need to be
fixed but those are not showstoppers.
Overall, IC Manage is handy.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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I saw IC Manage at DAC:
- Has a nice integration into the Virtuoso Library Manager.
Basically, ICM wrote their own copy of that. It makes
information about design revisions and status accessible.
IC Manage wants to manage all data of all chip projects in one big
repository. That may make life harder for IT infrastructure
(archiving, backup, disk sizing) than separating projects out into
individual repositories. On the other hand, it does fit IP re-use
strategies a little better.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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ClioSoft VDD -- their visual diff is intuitive for our full
custom designs. Our analog guys love it!
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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Liked VDD from ClioSoft. Useful.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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Not new this year, but most interesting for us. ClioSoft has a
tool called "Visual Design Diff" that compares two schematics.
This is something the Cadence Virtuoso R&D should have built
into ADE years ago.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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Trying to figure out the ClioSoft SOS Design Aware Adaptors.
It looked useful for Virtuoso users in the DAC demo.
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
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