July 17, 1997

Show me the Silicon!

EDA-vendor partnering agreements with ASIC and foundry companies bring design tools "closer to silicon."

I recently returned from my annual trip to the EDA mecca of the world, the Design Automation Conference (DAC). Not surprisingly, the biggest news at DAC this year was not some superhot, new EDA tool, but rather the number of announced technology agreements among companies. These agreements included a broad range of EDA-to-EDA, EDA-to-ASIC, and EDA-to-foundry organizations.

Overriding the importance of any single cooperative announcement are the signals that these agreements are sending to the electronics-design community as a whole. First, EDA companies are increasingly aware that they can't be all things to all people. Technology exchanges and cooperative-development programs allow designers to use chip-and board-design software that reflects the combined expertise of multiple EDA vendors. Such software should, theoretically, have greater ease of use and better runtime and accuracy than software developed by lone vendors. Second and more important, EDA-vendor partnering agreements with ASIC and foundry companies bring design tools "closer to silicon." A common complaint of chip designers is that vendors develop the EDA tools designers use in an environment isolated from the silicon that the tools produce. This cry of "Show me the silicon!" is echoed by designers doing core-based chip design and using third-party ASIC libraries. Most of these designers don't really trust a core or cell until they see it implemented and verified on a chip.

What does this trend toward EDA-vendor cooperative agreements mean to you? The message being sent is that, yes, EDA companies are acknowledging the need for closer ties to chip and board designers and to silicon producers. Closer ties to silicon implementation allow EDA vendors to better verify the ability of their products, tools, and design methodologies to successfully generate working silicon. This statement is especially true for tools you use to implement silicon structures, namely, cores and library cells, and to verify postlayout designs in which correlation of models to real silicon is critical.

Does the move to tighter cooperation among EDA, ASIC, and silicon companies mean that someday the design tools you'll buy will be foolproof and always lead to first-time silicon success? Not at all; that's why engineers have jobs. However, cooperation and closer tool ties to silicon are positive for the entire electronics industry. They provide an opportunity for EDA-tool vendors to show that they are listening to you, the designer, and are taking steps to better understand how their offerings lead to better final products, namely, silicon-and board-based electronic systems.

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