What happens when a project team under a tight schedule takes delivery on a tool promised to change the way it does chip design and verification and it doesn’t live up to the promise?

Why, the vendor sends in a village of AEs, R&D engineers and PhDs, of course, to work onsite with the lead designer and his or her designs. Yes, it’s common for a design automation company to send AEs into an account as “super” users of a specific software tool, such as formal verification, because it’s specialized and specific technology not everyone has mastered. And yes, old-style hardware emulators came with AEs because early generations of the tool were difficult to deploy. They required expertise and plenty of manual effort to get them operational, and hence the refrain “time to emulation.”

Some more positive project teams would assume this gesture seemingly is a sign of commitment. Actually, it’s not. Not even close. It’s a sign of the tool’s weakness because it doesn’t work.
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