Posts Tagged ‘IP’
Monday, July 30th, 2012
 Mike Gianfagna, VP of Corporate Marketing
With Atrenta’s acquisition of NextOp concluded and the corporate and technology integration going forward, we checked in with Atrenta’s Mike Gianfagna about what this means for the industry. Dawn of a new business day for EDA?
Ed: It’s been about a month now since Atrenta bought NextOp. What has to happen now?
Mike: The fanfare is waning. The news has been reported and analyzed. The two company’s web sites are one. And now the real work begins as we integrate NextOp technology with Atrenta technology.
Ed: So what does all this mean?
Mike: For Atrenta, it means accelerated growth in the SoC Realization market. We can now address design and verification challenges at RTL and above. For our customers, this will mean improved schedule predictability and lower cost.
Ed: So now you add functional verification to the RTL platform for SoC design, right?
Mike: Actually, NextOp’s technology goes beyond functional verification of SoCs. It also helps with IP qualification and IP reuse – very important focus areas for Atrenta. This technology will improve the completeness and effectiveness of our IP Kit.
Customers will get the previous benefits of early analysis coupled with functional verification – an area that continues to be very time consuming, expensive and somewhat unpredictable.
Ed: So what does this mean to the EDA industry?
Mike: I hope it has a positive impact on the industry as well. EDA has been stagnant for too long. The same customers buying the same tools from the same vendors. It’s time to shake things up a bit. It’s time for new methodologies, new approaches, new business models and more positive exits for all those hard-working people at private EDA companies. Can Atrenta’s acquisition of NextOp contribute to this trend in some meaningful way? I certainly hope so.
NOTE: Lee PR does work for Atrenta.
Tags: acquisitions, Atrenta, EDA, Electronic Design Automation, Finance, functional verification, IP, IP qualification, IP reuse, NextOP, register transfer level, RTL, semiconductors, SoC, SoC Realization, System on Chip, verification
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Tuesday, June 12th, 2012
Tags: 49DAC, DAC, Design Automation Conference, EDA, Electronic Design Automation, IP, IP libraries, migration, process migration, Sagantec, Semiconductor IP, Tech Design Forums
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Thursday, February 9th, 2012
To finish off our series of predictions, I would like to point you to another series of interesting and informative prophesies. Click on the following topics to see these predictions collected by Brian Bailey, Editor of EDA DesignLine.
Industry Trends
Tools
ESL
IP and Physical Design
The Bold Prediction for EDA
A big THANK YOU from Ed & me (Liz) to all who shared their eye opening predictions with us. Click on their names to see their predictions. Mike Gianfagna, Karen Bartleson, Paul McLellan, Jens Andersen, Bob Smith, Steve Schulz, Mathias Silvant, Herb Reiter, Max Maxfield, Chris Edwards, John Barr.
Only time will tell……
 The Persistence of Memory, 1931, Salvador Dali
Tags: 2.5D, 2012, 3D, 3D stacked die, Ansys, Atrenta, Cadence, Dassault, Double Patterning, EDA, EDA & IP, eda 2 asic Consulting, EDA DesignLine, EDA360, EdXact, Electronic Design Automation, Engineering & Technology, FPGA, Invarian, investment, IP, Lee PR, Lithography, low power, Low Power Design, Low-Power Design Blog, Magma, Maxfield High-Tech Consulting, Mentor, Needham, New Electronics, Programmable Logic, Programmable Logic DesignLine, publishing, Semi-wiki.com, Semiconductor IP, semiconductors, Si2, SoC, SoC Realization, social media, software, Standards, Synopsys, System on Chip, Tech Design Forum, textbooks, www.leepr.com
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Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
In 2012, we’ll see tablets and smartphones changing the world. That’s another way of saying Apple’s moves will have huge implications in semiconductors, foundries and EDA.
Apple’s use of the Samsung foundry has started an arms race between Samsung, TSMC and Global Foundries. Samsung is ramping up to meet the capabilities and capacity of TSMC. Intel is being pushed to stay ahead technologically and to consider new business models. Global Foundries continues to work to ramp its yields.
This situation will be good for semiconductor equipment and EDA vendors as well. Their tools will facilitate the new processes and the link between design and manufacturing.
Another element: in 2012, we’ll see the supply chain continue to consolidate. Why? The cost to design a complex SoC requires a big budget and a big market opportunity. Only the largest of semiconductor companies can tackle these designs. This increasing cost helps the FPGA vendors.
The foundries face increasing technology and capital requirements to move to new process nodes. Only a few will make it.
The public markets have been closed to EDA companies for a number of years making acquisition the most likely exit for EDA startups. Apache chose to be acquired by Ansys in 2011. It has been difficult for a new, large EDA competitor to emerge. This bodes well for Big EDA in its negotiations with Big Foundry and Big Semiconductor. In 2012 I believe there are several EDA companies poised to go public.
Who will be the beneficiary of these changes in 2012? Apple. Consumers should also benefit as new, leading edge fab capacity will be used to make exciting new devices.
John Barr
Portfolio Manager
Needham Aggressive Growth Fund
Needham Growth Fund
445 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10022
(212) 705-0462
Tags: 2012, Ansys, Apple, EDA, EDA & IP, Electronic Design Automation, Finance, foundries, Global Foundries, Intel, investment, IP, Lee PR, Needham, Samsung, Semiconductor IP, semiconductors, SoC, System on Chip, TSMC, www.leepr.com
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Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
One lingering question for 2012 is what will become of the Magma back-end platform? I predict that Synopsys will phase out the Magma Talus platform in favor of ICC. Why? It makes no sense for Synopsys to continue to field and support two different systems although it is likely that there will be some transfer of technology into ICC. Converting the existing Talus user base over to ICC is no small task and will likely take several years to complete as well as require incentives and utilities to move the existing base over to the Synopsys platform.
Timing verification is another story. Synopsys will capitalize on the acquisitions of Extreme and Magma to leverage the technologies in those products to develop and deliver the next generation PrimeTime platform. Once they complete this, they will have re-solidified their position as the industry golden standard in static timing verification.
It will be very interesting to see how the consumer-driven SoC market will evolve. SoCs used to be comprised of a processor, memory, various IP blocks, and the on-chip infrastructure needed to support them such as clock, power and communications channels. Now SoCs have multiple processors, large numbers of IP blocks, multiple on-chip communications channels and multiple memories. In essence, today’s SoCs are comprised of multiple SoCs as we used to define them.
The 2012 SoC will beget big challenges in design and even more so in verification. IP will become more important. And even though hardware performance and power will matter, system design and software will become the differentiating items.
SoC system design and verification will be especially active, because it is what the system does that really counts. (After all, the point of building an SoC is to deliver a winning end product.) To a great extent that will require a huge software and verification effort — under the schedule pressures that come from a hugely competitive consumer products market.
Bob Smith
Industry Consultant
rpsmith1403@comcast.net
Tags: 2012, EDA, EDA & IP, EDA360, Electronic Design Automation, ICC, IP, Lee PR, Magma, PrimeTime, Semiconductor IP, semiconductors, SoC, Synopsys, System on Chip, Talus, www.leepr.com
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Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
In 2012, we will see a bigger presence from companies like Ansys and Dassault giving much competition to the big three. Cases in point are the Ansoft and Apache acquisitions by Ansys. We thus might see further consolidation among the top EDA companies. To handle some of the pressure, I do believe the big three will once again realize the need for new ideas and begin to look further into acquiring new and cool technology earlier.
Jens C. Andersen
CEO
Invarian, Inc.
www.invarian.com
Tags: 2012, EDA, EDA & IP, EDA360, Electronic Design Automation, Invarian, IP, Lee PR, Semiconductor IP, semiconductors, www.leepr.com
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Monday, January 16th, 2012
I think that there will continue to be consolidation in the EDA industry. At each process node, fewer and fewer designs ship in high enough volume to recover the enormous investment in bringing them to market, which is a bad trend for EDA. Several companies in the ecosystem will go public if the market conditions remain favorable: eSilicon, Tensilica, Atrenta. Although, as with Apache, they may get acquired at the last minute (at high valuations). Mentor may get acquired, or sell off some business lines.
Paul McLellan
Blogger, semiwiki.com
www.semiwiki.com
Tags: 2012, Atrenta, EDA, EDA & IP, EDA360, Electronic Design Automation, eSilicon, IP, Lee PR, Mentor, Semiconductor IP, semiconductors, semiwiki.com, Tensilica, www.leepr.com
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Thursday, January 12th, 2012
This year, we’ll see an old standards battle get resolved. Now that all the players are participating in the IEEE Standard 1801 project (IEEE Standard for Design and Verification of Low Power Integrated Circuits), we can finally put the UPF-CPF debate to rest. Let’s hope that peace will reign and the temptation to fight one more time about a single low power standard will be overcome.
Social media will become less of a curiosity or a perceived waste of time for engineers. We’ll see more EDA customers helping answer each other’s questions and sharing more information (nothing proprietary, of course). LinkedIn discussions will have more depth, not simply people posting “read my blog”.
Facebook will remain more of a social vehicle, and for many engineers of our generation, a misunderstood channel. YouTube videos that provide good content – “how-to” and learning opportunities – will become popular. Twitter will remain a mystery for most, while a minority will find it of much value (include me in the minority). Marketers who spam social media channels with marketing-speak will be shunned. And, we’ll have some great guests on Conversation Central radio.
Karen Bartleson
Sr. Director, Community Marketing
Synopsys, Inc.
@karenbartleson
www.synopsys.com/blogs/thestandardsgame
President-Elect, IEEE Standards Association
Tags: @karenbartleson, 2012, Conversation Central radio, CPF, DAC, Design Automation Conference, EDA, EDA & IP, Electronic Design Automation, Facebook, IEEE, IEEE Standard 1801, IEEE Standards Association, IP, Lee PR, LinkedIn, Low Power ICs, Semiconductor IP, semiconductors, social media, Standards, Synopsys, Twitter, UPF, www.leepr.com, YouTube
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Wednesday, January 11th, 2012
And the predictions begin……
With regard to “Events” – 2012 will be a year of further acquisition and consolidation for both the EDA and IP industries. Some new faces will join the dance, with significant resources at their disposal. It is likely the “Big 3” will have at least one new name in a year’s time.
With regard to “Breakthroughs” – it’s a different story. 3D stacked-die design still won’t be mainstream in a year’s time. True hardware/software co-design will still be a developmental area and verification will still be as hard as ever. Many panels, blogs, seminars and special conference sessions will debate these topics throughout the year with great hope and excitement, however.
Mike Gianfagna
Vice President of Marketing
Atrenta Inc.
http://www.atrenta.com/
Tags: 2.5D, 2012, 3D, 3D stacked die, Atrenta, EDA, EDA & IP, EDA360, Electronic Design Automation, IP, Lee PR, Semiconductor IP, semiconductors, www.leepr.com
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Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
Step aside Nostradamus and Mayans. The real earth-shattering events of 2012 could take place in the EDA & IP industries. We asked industry friends, associates, clients and media folks to ponder what industry-shattering events or breakthroughs we might see in EDA & IP this coming year.
So what topics came up? Consolidation of the industry; standards; various technologies, 3D being the most discussed; even one man’s blatant personal goal. 🙂
We heard the word “challenge” a lot, for the big vendors and the smaller companies. So will two foundry-led EDA mega-companies duke it out with a third mega-company, as one diviner foretold? Tough to tell how tongue-in-cheek his prophesy was.
So we’ll post the visionary comments of one individual at a time, in the order they came into us. We found them enlightening and even entertaining! We hope you do too.
Liz and Ed
Tags: 2.5D, 2012, 3D, 3D stacked die, EDA, EDA & IP, EDA360, Electronic Design Automation, IP, Lee PR, Semiconductor IP, semiconductors, www.leepr.com
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