( ESNUG 440 Item 5 ) -------------------------------------------- [03/03/05]
Subject: ( DAC 04 #18 ) Magma Explains Blast Create, Blast RTL, and Libs
> GARY'S 2 PERCENT -- When I talk with Gary Smith of Dataquest about his
> EDA marketshare numbers, he tells me he puts something like 98% of all
> Magma revenue under what you'd call the P&R market. This is what the
> other 2% is going towards... Blast Create, Blast Noise, Blast Rail,
> and Blast Plan Pro.
From: Yatin Trivedi <yatin=user domain=magma-da spot gone>
Hi, John,
Magma has a single executable, single data model and a single market
segment of RTL2GDS for reporting numbers. As we move forward, our Cobra
releases will give you better insight into other market segments for
Magma and our revenue numbers in those markets will surely follow.
Gary Smith has moved on from a narrow and shrinking P&R market segment
of the past to a more appropriate "IC Implementation" market segment.
The reason why 98% of Magma's revenue is reported in the IC implementation
market is because it means an RTL2GDS market to Magma. It includes all of
Magma's products such as Blast Fusion, Blast Create, Blast Noise, Blast
Rail, and Blast Plan Pro.
> Unfortunately, Magma and their tools are still unknown by most ASIC
> designers and not perceived as serious contender yet. Also, there are
> a lot of unknowns still. For one, I don't know whether a vendor
> synthesis library is readily available.
Several large ASIC vendors have publicly announced support for Magma's
ASIC handoff. These include IBM, NEC, and Toshiba. Several 130 and
90 nm libraries such as IBM CU11, NEC CB12 and Toshiba TC300 are qualified
and available. Four other ASIC vendors work directly with Magma customers
to provide libraries and handoff qualification. See TI-Sun announcement
from 2/22/05 at the http://www.magma-da.com/PRSunTI.html link.
> Blast Create, which I believe is their RTL synthesis tool, isn't really
> useful in a sense that mapping is done to the Magma Super_Cell level
> only. You can only write out a min_size library gate level netlist. For
> full mapping, you need to move on to Blast Fusion through placement and
> optimization. Therefore, I don't see it as a player in the stand alone
> synthesis market. (I don't think Magma is trying to do that, anyway).
Stand alone logic synthesis is dead; it's a waste of time. It requires
inaccurate wireload models which have no merit in 130 nm and below.
This user's comments are accurate in the context of Blast RTL. However,
Blast RTL users continue with Blast Fusion for physical synthesis and
detailed routing. Stand alone synthesis makes sense only in the context
of RTL-to-Placed-Gates when you have sufficient physical information to
obtain quality metrics for your design in terms of area, performance,
power, testability, routability and congestion. That is what Blast Create
provides.
Since Blast Create includes the same logic synthesis as Blast RTL and
same physical synthesis as Blast Fusion, it offers:
- Traditional front-end users can produce placed gates better than
a logic netlist using wireload models.
- ASIC designers can handoff just the netlist or include placement
data (in DEF or PDEF format) with Blast Create.
- ASIC designers can provide the Volcano (binary datamodel) to ASIC
Vendor's Design Center where physical designers can continue from
where it was left off by the ASIC designer.
- There is no correlation issue in timing analysis whether the work
is done by the front-end designer or the back-end designer.
Think of Blast RTL as the useful part of the work done by traditional
logic synthesis tools. Minimum size netlist output is for the formal
verification, simulation, and external DFT flows.
- Yatin Trivedi
Magma DA, Inc. Santa Clara, CA
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