( ESNUG 462 Item 3 ) -------------------------------------------- [02/15/07]
Subject: Questions for Joe Sawicki, GM of Design-to-Silicon, Mentor
Mentor question: What happened to their new emulator ("Diamond/Veloce")
that they announced at DAC 2005 which is over 1.5 yrs ago.
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Is Mentor waiting for the Synopsys-Magma lawsuit to settle first before it
trys to acquire Magma?
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When are you going to buy Sierra and enter the P&R market? Sierra seems
to be very promising in the "IC implementation" space, and they already work
closely with Calibre LFD input. Wouldn't this fill in the Mentor DFM router
picture? Are you guys haggling over price?
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Joe Sawicki (Mentor) - We keep hearing rumors that Mentor is making a play
in the P&R space but we haven't seen anything yet. When will Mentor acquire
back-end technology or do you think having a solution in the back-end flow
unimportant?
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Why does the Calibre LPE tool do such a bad job at extracting inductance,
even though Mentor often advertised that this is the best LPE tool?
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Question for Joe Sawicki:
Mentor recently announced that its latest Calibre nmOPC product would run on
a Cell Broadband Engine-based computer from Mercury Computer Systems. EDA's
history is littered with the dead carcasses of HW accelerated applications
such as this. Is this for real or is it just a PowerPoint slide? If real,
why will this succeed when most HW accelerated applications in the past
have failed?
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Sawicki - How does Mentor's hardware-based OPC compare to that of Brion?
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I sure would be happy to hear the Mentor guys explain what they plan to do
with Summit products like "Panorama". (I used to be one of the developers
back when it was still "CARDtools".)
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What tools besides the Calibre platform is included in Mentor's term
"Design-to-Silicon"? And if there are other tools included, how much
revenue do they create (relative to Calibre) and how much R&D resources
does Mentor spend on them?
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Does Mentor believe in making $$$ with FPGA tools?
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Do you think a VHDL200X (or VHDL20XX) will ever exist?
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Would Mentor consider including some PSL support in low-cost (OEM/FPGA)
versions of ModelSim to encourage the use of Assertions? Today, a ModelSim
vendor in a European country told a customer who wanted to start using
assertions that he should switch from the nearly free ModelSim he used to
Questa AFV for $77k !!!! (and that even ModelSim SE wasn't suitable for
Assertions -- wrong indeed!)
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Joe, what happens when your "Design using C" mantra (aka Catapult C) shows
flat growth next year... Will you move back to System Verilog with your
tail between you legs?
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For Joe Sawicki:
In a recent DesignCon panel, it appears that the ramp to revenue for DFM
products is moving quite slowly. Yet, you went on record awhile back at
an investor conference that DFM revenue would be near $1.5 billion by 2010.
How do you reconcile these contradictions?
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Joe Sawicki: Every time anyone talks to you about your products, you tell
them you are the best and there is nothing like it in the market. So, why
don't you own 100% of the DFM/LVS/DRC market?
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There are 20 or so DFM companies. How do you segment the market and how
many of them will you buy?
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Joe: Do fabless COT customers really need to worry about complex DFM
(CAA/OPC/etc) at 65 nm, and do you have any real experiences (not FUD) to
back this up?
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Did the technology acquired from Bindkey and implemented in ICstudio
increase the seat sales of your full custom layout? Did Mentor get any
increased market share as a result?
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