No real fun being at DAC or ESC! Seriously!!

The 48th Design Automation Conference (DAC) kicks off in about a month’s time in San Diego, California, USA. I have been flooded with invites. There’s also an Embedded Systems Conference starting tomorrow, in San Jose. However, I will give both of the events a miss! Why? Simply because of one fact! The EDA industry has stopped surprising me! And, so has the embedded systems industry!!

I an very well aware of the changing and ‘challenging’ trends in the global semiconductor industry. I should also add that I do have at least some knowledge of the global EDA industry in 2010 and its expectations for 2011.

I am aware of the fact that product lifecycle management involves reducing the time-to-market cycles for new product introduction. Industry folks have, time and again, apprised me of the fact that there is a need to bridge the gap between software and hardware – and growing the IT and VLSI industries.

Cadence, for instance, will share a new technology that addresses some of the toughest challenges detailed in the EDA360 vision at ESC 2011. For how long will the challenges be met? Synopsys seems to be raking in the dollars, year after year. Mentor, despite its ‘current issues’, has been doing fairly well. So, what’s new over here?

In embedded, it is very well known globally, that India is an emerging leader. Otherwise, there is hardly any electronics or semiconductor related manufacturing happening in India, despite the best efforts of the ISA.

So, why isn’t all of this being viewed as industry growth? Maybe, you have all the answers! I will only try to sound more optimistic, without creating additional pain!

Almost all of the new techniques and technologies to be announced at either conference, will or already have made their way to India. Or, the companies using them are not allowed to speak about them, at best!

Mentor's Wally Rhines on EDA industry — II

Friends, this is a continuation of my conversation with Walden (Wally) C. Rhines, chairman and CEO, Mentor Graphics Corp., who was recently on a visit to India for the EDA Tech Forum as keynoter.

Software-to-silicon verification

Today there’s a growing focus on software-to-silicon verification, encompassing a full range of challenges that also includes embedded software, system validation and integration testing. How true?

Certainly true! The problem of hardware/software codesign and co-verification has been around a long time but, until this decade, generated less than $50million of annual EDA revenue.

Rhines said: “This decade, the market has grown rapidly and companies like Mentor have experience accelerated revenue growth in both their ESL design environments and their embedded software development tools and technology. Emulation has grown increasingly popular to verify not only hardware but to test application/embedded software.

“And, embedded software development tools, technology, RTOS, protocol stacks and LINUX middleware have all become part of the electronic product developers design environment.”

EDA in modeling and photomask correction

How and where does EDA fit into the big picture, particularly in the areas of modeling and photomask correction?

According to Rhines, for photomask correction, the EDA industry is the only provider, with two large EDA companies providing more than 90 percent of the optical proximity correction revenue.

“EDA companies have changed over the last decade due to the growth of OPC and DFM. Wafer fabs have now become major customers. Specialists in optics have joined traditional electronic design specialists at EDA companies to create the key technologies. EDA companies are now leading the way in the development of new process technology as evidenced by the IBM/Mentor joint development program at 22nm, he added.