( ESNUG 247 Item 3 ) -------------------------------------------- [8/16/96]
Subject: ( ESNUG 246 #8 ) Benchmark & User Opinions On Hardware Emulators
> I am currently engaged in benchmarking several emulation verification
> technologies in the market place such as Synopsys' Arkos Emulator, Mentor's
> Meta emulator, Aptix, Virtual Machine Works and fill-me-in on vendor
> against Quickturn's Emulation Systems. ... I would like to hear comments on
> ESNUG from people who are thinking/considering/benchmarking/using any of
> the above emulation systems.
// Synopsys ESNUG anonymous contribution mode ON
From: [ Call Me Ishmael ]
John, Here are my impressions of the hardware emulation market.
Quickturn -- In business for 4 years and I've used it a lot. Their
first generation was very bad in terms of usablity & friendliness; but
lately has gotten better. Their product works now. Their hardware
got more reliable and 2X to 4X faster. Their so-so software hasn't
changed. They claim better software is coming soon. Designs in the
~500 kgate range take a full day + night to compile. ("Compiling"
means your netlist is partitioned into "logic modules" that hold
about 250k gates each, followed by doing the Xilinx P&R on the 80 FPGAs
in each "logic module".) They can handle multiple clocks, but no Verilog
or VHDL co-simulation -- only gate-level stuff. Their tweek cycle (the
time to modify & recompile a few gates in a netlist) is about an hour.
I really like their built-in analyzer and 100% visibilty. You can
look at any node in a design as you step through cycle by cycle. Costs
U.S. $1 to $1.3 per gate emulation. They also give great DAC parties.
Synopsys Arkos -- My initial impression is that their speed won't match
Quickturn's, but they will do much better with ease-of-use and features.
They offer RTL Verilog & VHDL co-simulation. Non-synthable behavioral
RTL runs on your workstation interacting with the Arkos box. It can
handle multiple clocks and claims to integrate well w/ Synopsys's other
EDA tools. Has automatic partitioning into 200 kgate non-FPGA boards
with supposedly fast compile times. Don't know costs per gate. Still
lots of other unknowns, lack of documentation, etc. They claim ~$10
million in sales, but give no names. They have variable DAC parties.
Aptix -- Price leader. U.S. $0.50 (or less) per gate emulation. But
size limit of ~100 kgates and it's the Radio Shack kit of emulators.
You get a board, not a box, and you spend a lot time shuffling FPGAs
in and out of it. You provide your own Tektronix/HP logic analyzer
for debugging. Fast compiles and simulation times. No DAC parties.
Mentor's Meta-Systems -- Still vaporware. For example they said it can
handle multi-clocks, but when we looked into it they later said: "Woops!
That's in the next release!" They claim to be working on a Verilog/VHDL
co-simulation but it's not here today. Quickturn lawsuit causes some
concern because it supposedly limits their sales to France, England,
and Israel -- but Mentor claims they can sell what boxes they have
already imported. They also claim they're about 50 percent cheaper than
Quickturn. It all seems very shakey. They also have great DAC parties.
Virtual Machine Works -- never heard of them.
Overall, hardware emulation is usually 6X faster than software simulation, so
I'm very willing to trade a little speed for better features and usability.
- [ Call Me Ishmael ]
// Synopsys ESNUG anonymous contribution mode OFF
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