( SNUG 02 Item 12 ) -------------------------------------------- [ 5/15/02 ]
Subject: Module Compiler & Behavioral Compiler
UNRELATED TWINS: It's rumored that Behavioral Compiler is approaching its
End-Of-Life notice. It appears that nobody will be crying at the funeral.
"Behavioral Compiler? - yuck. Let's you exchange one set of arbitrary
limitations on coding style with another. BC was overpromised and
underdelivered."
- Tom Heynemann of Compaq
On the other hand, there is a growing cult following of Module Compiler.
Those who don't use MC tend to see it as being like BC and avoid both.
Those who use MC tend to pretty fanatically positive about MC.
"Module Compiler and Behavioral Compiler are more effort than they're
worth. Designers still need to be aware that they are creating
'circuits' and understand what they are building. Writing the code
has never been the bottle neck. Design is not done in a text editor."
- Brent Lawson of Texas Instruments
"My impression is MC & BC are not ready for prime time."
- Curt Beckmann of Rhapsody Networks
"We don't use MC/BC and I personally think they will be killed in the
near future."
- an anon engineer
"They're both a waste of money."
- Kevin Hubbard of Siemens
"Module Compiler is a great tool. Behaviour Compiler just didn't
catch on."
- an anon engineer
"Module Compiler rules. The quality of the netlists produced are
sometimes better than those produced by designers. The new release
of MC has links to PhysOpt by means of relative placement generation.
Datapath structures produced by MC are not perturbed by PhysOpt."
- an anon engineer
"Behavioral Compiler and Module Compiler both offered nice capabilities
in their niches. But Synopsys is not a niche player. It looks like BC
is now in the End-Of-Life phase. That is a shame. Most engineers
missed the point of BC. Which was not exactly behavioral synthesis but
behavioral simulation speed. In a time when ever project I know about
is claiming simulation and verification if the bottle neck, a 10x to
100x improvement in simulation shouldn't go unnoticed.
Module Compiler will only be come useful when it is fully integrated
into PhysOpt. If that doesn't happen, it will only survive as an
under-the-hood feature of DC.
There's also some debate within Corrent as to how desirable a
PhysOpt/MC flow would be given that you can't run RTL-to-gates formal
verification if you use MC (at least, not with Verplex, which is
what we use.) Also, what's the benefit of using PhysOpt/MC vs. using
Apollo/Astro in a semicustom approach (with Scheme scripts to fine-tune
placement, for example?)"
- Neel Das of Corrent Corp.
"We use Module Compiler a lot. Synopsys has been treating it as a
stepchild for a long time, but lately they seem to pay more attention
to it. Anyway, regardless of the integration weaknesses, it's a good
tool. BC had a lot of press 5-6 years ago (I've actually tried it
then, with decent success), but it's now a niche tool. It's not the
next big thing, though, the way Synopsys was hoping."
- Oren Rubinstein of Nvidia
"Module Compiler is great for datapath work. I have no use for
Behavioral Compiler at all."
- Tom Moxon of Moxon Design
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