( DAC'14 Item 8 ) ----------------------------------------------- [12/18/14]
Subject: CDNS Tempus still against SNPS PrimeTime is #8 story at DAC'14
PRIMETIME RIVAL: Last year the big news at DAC'13 was that Cadence was
taking on the Synopsys PrimeTime monopoly:
Leak says Cadence taking on Synopsys PrimeTime monopoly at DAC
and in DAC'13 in Austin the users flocked to it.
Cadence Tempus vs. Synopsys PrimeTime as #1 hot tool at DAC'13
This year at DAC'14, Tempus is less controversial and the users are moving
beyond tire-kicking and into actually trying it for STA, SI, and signoff.
It's still at the early stages, but from these user Tempus comments it
looks like Aart now has a serious viable contender to PrimeTime that his
attack lawers can't sue out of existence. Wow.
SURVEY QUESTION #1:
"What were the 3 or 4 most INTERESTING specific EDA tools
you saw at DAC this year? WHY did they interest you?"
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We have been using Cadence Tempus for 8-9 months now.
We used to use Extreme GoldTime, but Synopsys stopped supporting it
since they acquired Extreme-DA. Instead Synopsys is "encouraging"
GoldTime users to move to PrimeTime.
However, we stayed with stayed with GoldTime, because of its faster
STA performance. Synopsys has not been updating the software, just
offering workarounds.
We did a 3 month eval comparing Cadence Tempus and GoldTime timing
results. Both got similar results.
Tempus generates STA delay files 2X faster than GoldTime.
Tempus also gives us physical timing ECOs. We did ECOs by hand with
GoldTime which it took 6 weeks.
If we found a bug in our design:
Tempus ECO -- only 2 minutes
GoldTime ECO (manual) -- 1 day
We evaled Primetime vs. Tempus side by side and got similar results
with the timing parameters. The biggest advantage of Primetime was
its physical ECO capability.
But Tempus ECO alone saved us 6 weeks on our design -- a big impact.
Both Synopsys and Cadence are working on this. But Primetime couldn't
read the Encounter Physical DEF file, which was required to do a
"physically aware" ECO.
We've already done 4 Tempus tapeouts, and are comfortable with it.
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We generally use PrimeTime because we have a lot of licenses for it
in house, and use Tempus mainly for fixing timing on the last mile;
which is most valuable because the last mile is the hardest.
Tempus has brought a boost in TAT and QoR against ETS but moreover
against Primetime which in our opinion is behind.
Unfortunately we still have to Sign Off on PrimeTime as this is
currently the only one qualified for our fab. Therefore everything
around correlation is getting very important as latest nodes are so
sensitive to smallest changes that you get even different results
with the same tool on different work days
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Cadence Tempus:
Tempus evals with single view have shown >2x runtime improvement.
Distributed STA has worked well (again, with single view)
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Tempus looks promising from what I saw at DAC
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Cadence's new STA tool because it is actually trying to close the
gap of over-kill and reality. Right now PrimeTime is just so much
margin upon margin. Case in point is the new PT feature to shotgun
address the simultaneous switching impact on hold times.
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Have not used Cadence STA nor power tools yet. However, we are
switching over soon.
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At DAC, the Cadence Tempus presentation looked very interesting.
We will give it a trial evaluation when time permits.
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Since Tempus does multiple processors. I wanted to know if it
was better to buy a server with more processors in one box or
to buy more boxes with less processors.
I was also concerned about how much memory was needed per processor
for Tempus to handle the 100+ Million gate designs we now see. I
wanted to know what kind of servers we would have to get if we were
to use Tempus in-house.
Sorry, can't tell you firsthand how good or bad it is.
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Tempus slowly eating PT market even if DRV fixing is still a huge
issue with Tempus at 16FF.
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I'm suspicious of the Tempus speed claims. Nice catch because they
never compare apple to apple.
I suspect Tempus will cost too much in licenses to really have the
speed improvements as you need to buy multiple licenses.
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PrimeTime SIG held at DAC.
The best way to keep your customers is to have them talk directly
to other customers about how to best use your tools. Beats 1,000
DAC marketing pitches every time.
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PT SIG.
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Arcadia TimeHawk Static Timer
Does SDC 2.0, Signal Integrity, Variation. Claims high capacity for
flat timing analysis. Based in mainland China.
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