Design Automation
back to its original vibrancy once the cloud starts
clearing. When this will happen – is left to
anybody’s guess! There are many challenges
facing the EDA industry and so are the
opportunities.
EDA industry has still not tackled the
design-productivity gap very efficiently. The
semiconductor manufacturing capability far
Issue VIII 2009
exceeds the ability of a designer to fill the die
square4
with gates. It is yet to effectively address this
.com
gap. EDA tools will have to become more
‘intelligent’ in closely tying into the
manufacturing aspects and processes –
addressing the DFM concerns at the design
stage itself. For example the design team cannot
have a view on what kind of yields are going to
be possible with a particular choice of
oasiasemiconductor
technology, process and possibly a fab, during
.eur
the design stage. This is particularly important
www
for lower geometry nodes, since the cost
involved is rather high. While traditional
33
concerns existed regarding chip design centered
on speed and the chip area, there are now
concerns relating to power, signal integrity, yield,
and metal migration.
EDA will have to evolve to help true system
caretaker board and remains headless after the level definitions, helping to architect hardware
four top executives including Mike Fister and software, based on performance, power and
resigned recently. Both Mentor and Magma other functional needs. EDA will have to help
reportedly are not in any good shape either. designers to tackle the aspects of Silicon-
However, Synopsys has been able to defy this Package-Board-Software-Cost smoothly, since all
trend and has been able to stay positive. these are interlinked. Multi-core design
The worsening economic scenario and approach will become mainstay, as noted earlier
associated cost pressures are driving the design and this will need huge amounts of software to
managers to shy away from investments in newer be written. The EDA industry has never looked
tools. Many are also re-looking at the existing at this aspect of tackling software development
subscriptions they have signed with the EDA and tying it up tightly with that of hardware
vendors and the upcoming renewals. With the design. Today all these aspects are handled in a
news of layoffs pouring in constantly, they are discrete, inaccurate and inefficient manner. The
focusing more on enhancing productivity and EDA tools/flows/methodologies should aid the
may not hesitate to spend their shrinking design team to evolve the right partitioning in a
budgets on such tools! It would be appropriate quick manner. The software community has to be
to highlight here that the business model the seamlessly integrated into the EDA fold with
EDA Industry adopted is not doing them any lesser pain.
good. It is time someone comes up with an EDA Industry leaders predict that the EDA
model that overcomes the current issues!! industry will reach a $10 B market in the next 10
years, correlating closely with the Semiconductor
Challenges, Concerns and business growth. Since designs will increasingly
Opportunities be done globally, EDA industry needs to evolve
One can confidently assume that this is a a mechanism to carry out such designs
pausing phase and the EDA segment will come efficiently. Today they do not address this aspect
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