( ESNUG 303 Item 5 ) ---------------------------------------------- [11/4/98]
Subject: ( ESNUG 297 #4 299 #7 ) Even More EDA-Should-Support-Linux Debate
> Most of the responders are hackers who want the source code and therefore
> miss the point. I do not think they are representative of the EDA
> community. But, they are the vocal minority.
>
> I think.
>
> - Elliot Mednick
> Wellspring EDA
From: landmh@taec.toshiba.com (Howard Landman)
John,
I can't tell you how many times *every* *week* I wish I had source code
access to, say, Design Compiler or Aquarius-XO. There have been times
when it has literally taken me a half-dozen emails and 3 or 4 face to face
meetings spread over several *months* to even convince some EDA vendor
that they had a *problem*, let alone get them to start working on it or
actually deliver a fix. And this when I'm paying maybe $75-100K per
year in *maintenance*!
If I had the source code, I could at least debug the problem and tell
them "Here. Fix *THIS*.", or fix it myself and get on with my work.
Heck, I could chuck the maintenance and *hire* someone full time
to do nothing but fix that one vendor's problems for the same money.
I just finished taping out a chip on EDA software that had so many
bugs, we ended up writing numerous scripts to find and fix the
damage it did to the design and *THEN* we ran Chrysalis after every
single major operation to make sure it was fixed and that we hadn't
broken anything ourselves. Given the expected market volume and the
amount of time it would have saved, I think full source access to
the tools would have been worth easily over $100K. And *that* assumes
that *I'm* the only one with source access and I can't share fixes
with anyone else - which would not be the case with open-source tools.
I think the real problem here is finding a viable economic model.
There aren't nearly as many users of EDA tools as of generic PC
software, and the tool algorithms are often difficult, requiring
talented and highly trained people to implement well. How do these
people get compensated? Why should anyone work on, say, a free
DC substitute when they can make more money working for Synopsys
or writing video games?
On the other hand, the sad fact is it's quite possible to pay some
EDA vendor half a million dollars for software that simply doesn't
work well enough to get the job done, and users have virtually no
recourse in such cases. At least with open source you'd have a
fighting chance of not having to write off the whole investment
and start over with a different vendor.
And finally, as we keep pushing into the deep submicron, the game
is changing. New problems arise and have to be dealt with. The very
same tool that worked *perfectly* on your last chip may suddenly
show some signs of weakness on your next one. The fast response
time of open source could be a *big* advantage in these cases.
- Howard Landman
Toshiba in Kawasaki, Japan (for a month or so)
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From: Premysl Vaclavik <tnepva@neuroth.co.at>
Hi John,
Please let me add some points to this discussion.
0. As an IC design house, we are using commercial design SW running
on the unix based workstations. So I hope we are representative
enough.
1. The only reason why we are NOT using high end PCs for the design is
that none of the UNIX OS alternatives running on a PC is supported by
the CAE vendors. Try to ask Mentor, Avant!, Cadence or Synopsys for the
UNIX based PC platform !
2. The only reason why we are using PCs for the design support is that
MS Word and Excel are now some kind of a standard and everybody
expects that we are able to read and write in this format. We tried
to use so called compatible products but had a lot of troubles and at
the end gave up and moved to the NT4.0 and Office97.
Conclusion:
We would pay usual industry price for a LINUX PC based professional CAE SW
because it could boost our unix workstation computing power by using high
end PCs without changing our usual environment and without any problem with:
* OS administering and reliability
* running existing scripts
* SW installation / deinstallation
* file system, user permissions and environment variables
* terminal environment
* usage of floating licenses between different platforms
If something goes wrong under LINUX we have still theoretical chance to find
it, understand it and fix it. If the same happens under Win9[5,8] or NT we
get real problems.
- Premysl Vaclavik
T. Neuroth Ges.m.b.H. Vienna, Austria
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: Alec Stanculescu <alec@fintronic.com>
John,
Fintronic supports Verilog simulators on many platforms (SUN-OS, SUN
Solaris, HP-Unix, Dec-Alpha-Unix, Dec-Alpha-NT, Win95, Win98, Intel-NT,
Sony-News, SGI-Unix, and Linux).
However, since 1995, our development platform is Linux. Linux is the
first platform for which a new version is ready. Since the release of
Undertow by Veritools on Linux our simulator benefits from a high
quality waveform display on Linux, making it possible for many of our
customers to use Linux for COMMERCIAL development of ASICs.
There is definitely enough critical mass for Verilog simulation under
Linux, as Design Acceleration announced the porting to Linux of their
excellent SignalScan product.
Customers pay between $3,400 to $13,500 for various flavors of FinSim
on Linux bundled with Undertow. I say this to counter the argument
that Linux users want all software to be free. Not one of our
customers was sorry that they purchased the Linux version of FinSim!
Many expressed their happiness about FinSim on Linux on public buletin
boards.
Several customers asked, and were granted their request, to exchange their
Unix or NT licenses for Linux licenses!
For the general user (as oposed to the hacker) there is only one rule
to observe when intending to use Linux: buy the PC with Linux
pre-installed to make sure that there is no unsupported component on
your machine. There are several places where PCs with pre-installed
Linux can be purchased. This may save a lot of time and money.
Best regards,
- Alec Stanculescu
Fintronics
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: Howard Pakosh <hpakosh@avanticorp.com>
Good day all,
Since I've arrived at Avant! one of the most common questions I've heard
during my visits is "what is Avant! doing to support LINUX?"
As some of you know, we are now supporting LINUX from Red Hat Software. Our
benchmarks have shown that test cases run on Polaris (LINUX) have run 50%
faster using a 450MHz Pentium II over the top end Sun UltraSPARC. This is
significant and worth looking into.
The following article appeared on the FRONT PAGE of the 10/19 issue of EE
Times. This is very positive press coverage for Avant!, and obviously for
Polaris, too! The full article is also available online at
http://www.techweb.com/se/directlink.cgi?EET19981019S0001
Please check it out and if you're curious how well it could perform for you,
please let me know and we can arrange an on-site evaluation.
- Howard Pakosh
Avant! Corp.
---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
From: [ Something Smells Rotten In Denmark ]
John-
something you might want to share with your readers is at:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/halloween.html
it's a (alleged) internal microsoft memo analyzing open-source software
(in other words, linux), the potential threat to MS' business, and how to
counteract it. The solution is to de-commoditize as many standards-based
protocols that exist now and replace them with moving targets that are
hard to develop replacements for.
Eric Raymond's analysis of the memo includes a section that particularly
rings true for me:
"The `folding extended functionality' here is a euphemism for introducing
nonstandard extensions (or entire alternative protocols) which are then
saturation-marketed as standards, even though they're closed, undocumented
or just specified enough to create an illusion of openness. The objective
is to make the new protocols a checklist item for gullible corporate
buyers, while simultaneously making the writing of third-party symbiotes
for Microsoft programs next to impossible. (And anyone who succeeds gets
bought out.)"
"This game is called ``embrace and extend''. We've seen Microsoft play
this game before, and they're very good at it. When it works, Microsoft
wins a monopoly lock. Customers lose."
I think we've seen similar tactics within the EDA world that we didn't /
don't stand for either (synopsys .lib, verilog itself, DEF formats, etc).
When the standards are closed, the customer certainly doesn't win. I
really hope we don't want to climb in bed with the master of such
techniques, Microsoft.
(Please don't quote me by name for ESNUG, etc.)
- [ Something Smells Rotten In Denmark ]
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