( SNUG 01 Item 7 ) --------------------------------------------- [ 3/28/01 ]
Subject: Cadence Tapeout FUD, Rajeev, & CEO Credibility
SEARCHING FOR TRUTH: Three months ago, I challenged Aart's claim of 53
physical synthesis tape-outs. After a count and a recount, I discovered:
Synopsys PhysOpt +
ChipArch + FlexRoute : ################################ 65 tape-outs
Silicon Perspective
"First Encounter" : ##################### 43 tape-outs
Cadence
PKS : ### 7 tape-outs
Mentor
TeraPlace : ### 7 tape-outs
Sapphire
FormIT : ### 6 tape-outs
Magma
"Blast Fusion" : # 3 tape-outs
Monterey
Dolphin : 0 tape-outs
It was all written up on DeepChip and EE Times. I was a bit embarrassed
that I hadn't caught him what I though was a little corporate bragging. Oh,
well. Win some. Lose some.
At HDL Con'01, I went into the Cadence demo suite (along with a number of
other engineers) and saw their PKS demo. It was cool to see. Their slides
outlined all sorts of PKS features and harped about some what some guy in
Synopsys said about correlation in a 1999 issue of EE Times. It closed
with a point-by-point comparison between PKS and PhysOpt. They claimed to
have "10 to 12 tape-outs" with PKS. Then the Q&A came. This guy from
Intel asked: "What about the 53 PhysOpt tapeouts?" The answer (I wrote it
down word for word) was:
"The only thing I hear about Physical Compiler comes from
Synopsys Marketing. I heard that the tape-outs were recounted
and there were only 27 of them. It's on the web somewhere."
- Rashmi Murthy, Cadence Lead Applications Engineer
There was Cadence throwing FUD on *my* tape-out count! (BTW, I don't blame
Rashi for saying what she said -- she was just parroting the responses to
the anticipated Q&A for the PKS demo. Rashi wasn't saying this; Cadence
Marketing was saying this!)
Two weeks later, I read that Ray Bingham, the CEO of Cadence, was now
claiming 35 tape-outs at DATE. (Hmmm... You got 25 *more* tape-outs
in the two weeks since Rashi told me about those "10 to 12 tape-outs"
for PKS? Good for you, Ray! Good for you!)
So I kept that story quiet (to not bias the respondants) and laughingly
added this question to my SNUG'01 trip report survey:
"3a.) At last week's SNUG, Aart claimed to have 85 to 100 customer
tape-outs for his physical synthesis tools. At this week's DATE
conference in Europe, Rajeev Madhavan, the CEO of Magma, claims
to have 25 tape-outs and Ray Bingham, the CEO of Cadence,
claims to have 35 tape-outs. Out of those 3 CEOs, in your opinion,
who is lying and who is telling the truth? (Please be very
specific; I want to tally the total 'he's lying' vs. 'he's
truthful' votes for each CEO.)"
Rather than try to tally the user responses, I've just quoted ALL the user
replies anonymously to this question and you can draw your own conclusions.
Enjoy!
"Rajeev Madhavan, the CEO of Magma, is lying. Aart is telling the truth
(but probably bending the rules to get the numbers.) Ray is telling
the truth (but probably bending the rules to get the numbers.)
But what do you expect from CEOs?"
- an anon engineer
"I dont know. Magma is the most interesting of all. But not yet
useable for normal users."
- an anon engineer
"100 tapeouts for PhysOpt, Aart is definitely LYING."
- an anon engineer
"1) Aart is clearly mistaken -- you CANNOT tape out a chip with Physical
Compiler!!! Any statement to the contrary is just untrue. He
should not be allowed to claim any "tapeouts", unless its in
conjunction with Cadence/Avanti since you'll need a million bucks
worth of their tools to actually tapeout a chip!
2) I don't buy the 25 number from Magma at all.
3) Ray's number, I believe. Given (1) above, in fact, I think he's
being way too conservative. How many of Aart's "tapeouts" were
actually Cadence tapeouts??!!"
- an anon engineer
"I'm convinced Aart is truthful. I remember you counted the PhysOpt
users a while ago and there were a lot. I also suspect Ray Bingham's
number is accurate. I assume it refers to PKS, not Silicon Ensemble,
because I'm sure SE has a lot more tapeouts than that.
For Magma, 25 seems a lot. Could it be they were referring to chips
that have some smaller piece placed with Magma in them, while the rest
of the chip used mainstream tools like Apollo or Silicon Ensemble?"
- an anon engineer
"Didn't you blow December tracking this down? They are all stretching
the truth a little but the CEO of Magma has more to gain (and lose) if
he does not show tapeouts. You made tapeouts the rallying cry for ASIC
EDA vendors. Cadence's CEO will often have higher numbers because of
Spectrum Services are still doing taxi-cab tapeouts and the end clients
don't want to talk about them. They feel selling there soul to Cadence
is not the politically correct view. Finally Aart's claim seem to be
the most accurate going back to your work in December.
My gut feel is it is good to have competition in this marketplace. It
makes all the EDA vendors stay on their toes and we the users benefit."
- an anon engineer
"Aart truthful
Rajeev lying
Ray lying"
- an anon engineer
"I would say that Aart is telling the truth, Rajeev is lying, Ray is
exaggerating the truth (there probably are 35 tape-outs but probably
many of them also used Synopsys for synthesis and therefore these are
probably just "back-end" tape outs)."
- an anon engineer
"Aart : Truthful"
- an anon engineer
"I can't state that I think any are lying (so they can't sue me),
however I'd bet my reputation on all three stretching credibility as
far as possible to make the best marketing story (is a respin really
a seperate tapeout?)"
- an anon engineer
"I'd go with Aart as most truthful, followed by Ray & then Rajeev
from a standpoint of what I hear/see from their involvement in
customer support.
What I am waiting to hear is where they stand as far as designs that
have been done with no or minimal support from their support/R&D folks;
To know when the customer has been fully enabled (new tool & new flow)
without any added support from the EDA vendors that goes beyond their
typical support flow."
- an anon engineer
"After your ESNUG survey a couple months ago and some of the people I
talked to at SNUG, I would say the following:
Rajeev is definitely lying.
Art is telling the truth
Ray is probably being honest."
- an anon engineer
"Rajeev is lying."
- an anon engineer
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