( ESNUG 374 Item 6 ) -------------------------------------------- [06/14/01]
Subject: ( ESNUG 373 #4 ) Avanti Sales Lied About LEF/DEF To Sell Saturn
> My job is NOT to develop flows, but to tape-out working silicon. Yes, I
> realize that it is possible to write Scheme scripts to delve into the
> Avanti Milkyway database (like *Synopsys* did with dumpPDEF3.scm,
> dumpPLIB.scm, and readPDEF3.scm), but my observation was that Avanti
> does not actively support "standard" design formats like LEF/DEF or PDEF.
>
> What caused my original snide comments was that credit for the Scheme
> scripts had mistakenly been given to Avanti -- instead of Synopsys. My
> point was that Synopsys is making an effort to "play well with other EDA
> vendors." I have not seen similar support coming from Avanti.
>
> - Dale Lomelino
> Philips Semiconductors Cary, NC
From: Leo Butler <lbutler@brocade.com>
Hello, John.
Once upon a time while working for Philips out here on the west coast, my
most excellent supervisor/co-worker and I were helping Avanti improve both
their LEF and DEF input/output code in Apollo. Back then they were more
responsive and our salesperson got us in front of the developers upon
occasion as she recognized we were trying to be helpful. Avanti fixed their
code and we were able to interface Philips' DEF-based tools to Apollo via
DEF. Life was good.
Once I came to my present employer, I couldn't remember the "getClash"
command. I knew it existed but had lost my notes. So I asked my AE at
Avanti to help me out. His response was that I had to ask the salesperson
about anything regarding LEF/DEF. So I asked him, and his most helpful
response was:
"It's good to hear from you again. Unfortunately, we do not support
LEF/DEF. We only support Verilog and GDS II. Are you using Apollo?
Have you evaluated Saturn (our physical optimization)?
Yeah... I've seen Saturn in action. Or is that "inaction"?
I sent him a VERY kindly-worded response indicating that I knew this to not
be quite accurate, but he never bothered to respond. He don't know me very
well, do he? Not a good way to get invited in to talk about your
way-awesome-cool-bitchin' (or in their case, maybe less sucky) new software.
Oh well. On to the next small company that gets it.
BTW, another random Apollo auDefOut related tidbit:
Apollo used to output DEF based upon the CEL view, not the FRAM view. No
clue why, but I have seen CEL views that didn't match the FRAM and the DEF
was, well, pretty useless. This switch changes the behavior so auDefOut
uses FRAM for coordinate calculations:
auSetDefOutFramBndry #t
It was probably mentioned in ESNUG before, but there it is just the same.
- Leo Butler
Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.
|
|
