Mentor 'de-emphasizes' equivalence checker
By Michael Santarini, Senior Editor -- EDN, November 1, 2005
Mentor Graphics says it hasn't discontinued but has rather "de-emphasized" its FormalPro equivalence checker.
Last week in Deepchip.com's newly released verification survey, a couple of users said Mentor had discontinued its FormalPro tool. But, according to Steve White, general manager of Mentor's 0-In functional-verification group, Mentor is still developing the technology and still lists the product in its price sheet, but the company is not developing it as diligently as before or actively marketing it. Mentor has instead dedicated the bulk of its verification R&D staff toward newer verification technologies, such as assertion-based verification tools from its acquisition of 0-In.
"FormalPro is still on our price list," White said. "It continues to be developed and it is the responsibility of a group within Mentor called 'continuing engineering services.' They have taken the product and continue to deliver enhancements to the installed base, but are not actively marketing it outside of the customers already using the product."
That may be news to the survey respondents, one of whom said "FormalPro is a good tool, but no longer supported," while another said FormalPro was "discontinued and worse than the other two [Verplex and Formality]."
But White, who noted that he is not in charge of the continuing engineering services group, said the move makes sense for Mentor, because equivalence checking is more frequently used today in the implementation tool flow rather than in front end design and verification.
"Because Mentor has chosen not to participate in that crowded market, we de-emphasized the marketing of that product, but not the support for our customers," White said. "For customers interested in the product or actively using it, it is on the price list and orders are actively being taken and enhancements are being delivered."
White said that he personally believes standalone equivalence checkers will disappear in a few years, as more technology gets folded into implementation toolsets. "That's a personal belief rather than a Mentor position," White added.
Mentor is focusing its R&D efforts on building on 0-In's assertion-based verification technology. "It is the complement of dynamic, simulation-based verification, coverage, and formal verification," he said. "While we continue to be testbench- and simulation-neutral, we are emphasizing the scalable verification methods here at Mentor and are actively supporting all of the Accellera standards, such as SystemVerilog, PSL, and related assertions."
White declined to disclose how many customers use FormalPro but said the move to de-emphasize the tool was made at the beginning of the year.
