( ESNUG 596 Item 5 ) ----------------------------------------------------- [04/12/2024]
Subject: Scooby Doo Mystery -- why did Ravi launch a mediocre ZeBu EB2 at SNUG'24?
LOOKING BEHIND THE CURTAIN: I liked Sassine's campy sense of circus showmanship when
on stage during his keynote, Sassine unvieled Ravi's new ZeBu EB2 emulator.
before ...
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... and after
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Good classic cornball EDA theater. (And it beat him just reading his slides!)
What was disappointing was when I took a deeper tech dive into Ravi's new ZeBu EB2.
With his new ZeBu EB2, Ravi's SNPS HW R&D guys found a way to stuff 72 Xilinx VU19Ps
into the same rack space that the old ZeBu EB1 had with 32 Xilinx VU19Ps.
Ravi Subramaniam
SNPS Verification Bigwig
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and his new ZeBu EB2 now has 2.3x more capacity
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Here's my Cooley slide to summarize what changed (and what mostly didn't change.)
NOTE: pay close attention to that old vs. new stuff
This is my Cooley interpretation of what I heard said at SNUG'24...
1. "We want to sell deep into the datacenter HPC market, so we redesigned
our old HAPS-100's into new HAPS-100 to better fit as modules in a
standard 19" 42U datacenter rack".
2. "Along the way, we figured out how to jam 12 Xilinx VU19Ps into the
the PCB, whereas before we only had 4 Xilinx VU19Ps."
3. "SNPS Marketing thinks it's better if we pitch this as the new ZeBu EB2
has gone from 2.4 Billion gates now up to 5.6 Billion gates -- a 2.3X
gain in emulation capacity -- and we're going to downplay our HAPS-100
PCB respin because it's not anywhere near as sexy as 5.6 Billion gates."
Here's my Cooley table to summarize what changed (and mostly didn't change.)
NOTE: pay close attention to that old vs. new stuff
Don't get me wrong.
A 2.3X emulation capacity gain to 5.6 Billion gates is nice -- but it's all coming
from a very clever PCB respin -- making it nothing big to brag about.
Everything else stayed the same. It's still runs in a datacenter, is air cooled, it
had no fancy changes in power requirements and ... here's the big one ... it's <yawn>
still using the same old -- dinosaur olde -- Xilinx VU19P.
It's like MacDonald's exclaiming "we include French fries with every Happy Meal!"
(McDonald's always includes French fries and a toy with every Happy Meal.)
For those of us growing up under Moore's Law, getting a 2.3X gain in emulation
capacity is something to be expected over the years.
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I MUST GIVE RAVI (SOME) CREDIT: in my notes, someone somewhere at SNUG'24 said
"Two top hyperscalers designing ARM-based servers using new ZeBu EP2."
So by logicing it all out, I have come to the conclusion it's either Nvidia, or
AWS (Annapurna Labs), or Microsoft.
Choose two.
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WHY COOLEY WAS DISAPPOINTED: Everyone knows that for the past 15 (or so) years
that Synopsys has been super crazy tight with Xilinx because Synopsys is easily
the #1 customer for Xilinx' truly massive FPGAs.
All the previous Zebu and HAPS boxes are Xilinx based. For ZeBu, it's the
ZS3, ZS4, ZS5, Zebu EP1, and now the Zebu EP2; and for HAPS it's the HAPS-60,
HAPS-70, HAPS-80, and both HAPS-100s. (There was no HAPS-90. Why? I dunno.)
Five years ago in 2019, the 16nm VU19P ruled the roost with 9M gates.
But that 5 years ago.
The hot new 7nm VP1902 with 18.5M gates is to be shipping first half of 2024.
What I expected at SNUG'24 was a kickass new ZeBu box based on the new 7nm VP1902.
Now, THAT would be something to really brag about!
But, alas, it wasn't to be....
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
ALL FOR FOUR MONTHS? Now is where the Scooby-Doo mystery comes in... since Xilinx
said production quantities of VP1902s will be "shipping first half of 2024" ...
... which, at the latest, is 4 months from now ... if you're Ravi, why even launch
a VP19P anything right now? All it buys you is 4 months. Once those new VP1902s
hit, everything based on the old VP19Ps will be yesterday's news. Which begs
the question. Why do all this just for 4 months, Ravi?
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