( ESNUG 333 Item 3 ) --------------------------------------------- [10/20/99]
Subject: ( ESNUG 324 #2 329 #2 ) Simplex Founder Addresses "Eleven Flaws"
> I saw there were couple of references to Simplex's Power analysis tools
> 'Thunder & Lightning' in your DAC'99 Trip Report. I have been working
> with them for around an year now and I couldn't resist from commenting.
>
> ... [ the 11 Simplex Fundamental Flaws snipped for brevity ] ...
>
> You will need lot of hand-holding from Simplex's support to work with
> their 'Thunder & Lightning' power tools.
>
> - Anil Kumar
> Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. Camarillo, CA
From: "David Overhauser" <ovee@simplex.com>
Hi, John,
My interpretation of the nature of Anil's 11 concerns suggest that ver 1.2.3
was his frame of reference. My responses below address where our product is
currently. Here's a point-by-point reply to Anil's 11 concerns:
> 1) The Simplex flow has too many commands/scripts.
Agreed. This has been improved significantly from ver 1.2.3 in ver 3.0.0.
Given the flexibility needed to accomodate most major design styles and
output formats, some customization will always be needed. But, our goal
is to provide users with selectable default environments where it is
possible to significantly reduce this amount of effort. Our latest
product, Fire & Ice QX 3.0.0, has a push-button flow with a single command
line, compact command file, and no scripts.
> 2) The Simplex scripts/commands are hard to understand.
Agreed. This has been simplified and the documentation improved with
ver 2.0.0. Our past focus has been on flexibility, capacity, accuracy,
and speed. This resulted in hard to use tools. With ver 2.0.0 we
significantly simplified our command language by 2-5X while increasing its
robustness. Ver 3.0.0's gate-level option takes an even greater step
forward.
> 3 & 4) Simplex doesn't do power consumption analysis.
This is true. Our focus today is in power distribution analysis and not
power consumption analysis; we support open standards and have worked with
other tools vendors to support customer's desire to integrate our tools.
> 5) Simplex flows requires a lot of RAM/CPU/disk.
Agreed. We started in a market of high-end users who were unwilling to
give up performance, cycle times, and accuracy for RAM/CPU and disk
space. But, we've improved: ver 2.0.1 provided a 5-10X reduction in
CPU time required for extraction. ver 3.0.0 gate-level option achieves
an additional 10-15X reduction in CPU time as well as elimination of
intermediate disk files and an order of magnitude reduction in RAM usage.
> 6) Run times are long.
We agree, run times are too long! Although run times have been reduced
by 5X-10X from ver 1.2.3. to ver 2.0.1 (which normally meets or beats the
competition), clearly something better is needed. ver 3.0.0's gate-level
option incorporates a revolutionary technology to address the need
for faster cycle times, larger capacity and better accuracy. Our customers
have seen additional 10-15X performance improvement, even over 2.0.1, with
ver 3.0.0
> 7) Simplex doesn't support multi-voltage design.
Simplex does support multi-voltage design. It is common to have a power
supply for internal logic using a different voltage than I/O pads. Our
tools make no assumptions as to the number of power supplies on a chip or
their voltage. Our users often have chips with 3 or more power supplies
at 3 voltage levels.
> 8) Simplex does not have functionality to support multi-clock designs.
We support multi-clock designs and have since ClockStorm was introduced
in 1998. We analyze each clock separately for delay and skew. We do not
support analyses between different clock domains today, but we consider
that in the realm of where customer input can help advance products for
the future.
> 9) Ipeak analysis is not a real peak current.
We have many power grid analysis flows available to permit tradeoffs in
speed and precision of the analysis. Generally the method used is a
balance of the users need for quick information, the availability of
quality information (on the design), the design type and the specific
requirements for the design-low power, speed, reliability etc. Our Ipeak
analysis has been very successful in finding power distribution problems
independent of the precise accuracy of the IR drop estimate. Other flows
in VoltageStorm permit more precise measurement of IR drops in designs.
> 10) Thunder does not support analog circuitry.
Ver 3.0.0 includes new functionality to provide static PGS capabilities for
designs that include small analog blocks.
> 11) The Simplex flow needs a better user interface.
Agreed. We recognize that this is an area where we need to focus
improvement and we are working hard to do that with customer input.
John, we recognized that our initial focus on technical capability resulted
in clumsy usability, and we have been working to address these issues in the
past two years. Our latest product, gate-level Fire & Ice QX, squarely
addresses this. Gate-level Fire & Ice QX represents a significant milestone
in speed and usability. The gate-level option is a push button flow -- a
single command line is used, and there are no large intermediate databases.
In addition, its performance is between 10X and 15X improvement over even our
2.0.0 release in speed -- on a single CPU -- and it has the same accuracy
our customers expect.
- David Overhauser, Co-Founder
Simplex Solutions, Inc. Sunnyvale, CA
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