> ... would it be too much to ask that you actually perform detailed content
> and situational analysis on your user feedback -- as opposed to a mindless
> "counting" of the number of responses -- before rendering your opinion?
> Finally, when you do provide us with your rambling commentaries, could you
> PLEASE use an appropriate cliche!!!
>
>     - Dennis Harmon, CEO of Zenasis
>       http://www.deepchip.com/wiretap/060707.html


From: Paul de Dood <dedood=user domain=prolificinc spot calm>

Hi John,

In my view, your census and analysis was accurate and telling.  Our SW has
optimized designs ever since I founded Prolific 11 years ago.  Our customers
use ProTiming/ProPower for Final Pass Optimization (FPO includes not only
IPO timing optimization, but leakage & dynamic power optimization as well.)
We've been profitable every year by being responsive to our users.

Your census echoes what we see in the market.  However, Dennis accused you
of mindless counting before rendering an opinion, so here is a "detailed
content and situational analysis," of current users only, scored in the
spirit of the World Cup.

  "We ran ProTiming on our design (264 K instances) ... and it reported
   a WNS improvement of 10.2% during optimization... after ECO (9.6%)...
   much better than expected... ProTiming has really good optimization
   algorithms targeted for safe post-route optimizations."

       - Lars-Olof Svensson of Xelerated

Score: Prolific 1 - Zenasis 0

  "Prolific is quite useful if your timing sign off tool comes from a
   different vendor compared to the physical layout tool."

       - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Score: Prolific 2 - Zenasis 0

  "I haven't personally been using ProTiming since a project 2 years ago."

       - David Oliver of AMD

  "I do not have any new data."

       - Sudhir Chandratreya of NeoMagic

(These 2 users successfully used ProTiming to tape out designs which met
their timing requirements, but they are not recent users.  So no score.)

Score: Prolific 2 - Zenasis 0

  "been a user for about 1 year... The advantages are two fold..."

       - David Chiang of Spansion

Score: Prolific 3 - Zenasis 0

  "We have been very happy with the ProGenesis and ProSticks tools"

       - Joe Tostenrude of Boeing Phantom Works

Score: Prolific 4 - Zenasis 0

  "Our experience with Prolific's ProPower tool has been amazingly good.
   ... trivially easy to set up and run ... Within an hour of first using
   ProPower, I had taken my leakage down 50% on a multi-vt design that
   had already taped out... Timing got BETTER... ProPower is a no-brainer"

       - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Score: Prolific 5 - Zenasis 0

  "Our design is a 130 K placeable instances ....  [ProPower] works off a
   PrimeTime session (typically the one resulting from your sign off)....
   The two main modes of operation are VT swap only and/or downsizing.  The
   first mode will only work on the leakage, whereas the second one will
   also reduce the dynamic power.... recovered 40% of the leakage... The
   runtime was only a couple of hours....  Another experiment ... ProPower
   was able to reduce the leakage by 60% ... I also tried ProTiming.  The
   beauty with ProTiming is that the tool is working off your sign-off STA
   session.  Each modification is correctly timed by construction.... the
   tool fixed all the violations in a few minutes..."

       - [ An Anon Engineer ]

Final Score: Prolific 6 - Zenasis 0

John, you characterized the feedback on Prolific as "many happy & some not
so happy real users speaking up for them".  I think my detailed analysis
here clearly supports this position.  We stand by the results of your census
as it clearly shows Prolific has been successfully used for many years.  If
your readers want to further reduce their power by 25-70% and improve timing
by 10-20%, tell them to come check us out at DAC at Booth 3563.

Finally, John, thanks for your census; we think our tools kick ass, too.

    - Paul de Dood, CEO
      Prolific, Inc.                             Newark, CA