( DAC 99 Item 27 ) ----------------------------------------------- [6/25/99]

 WHERE NO SYNTHESIS HAS GONE BEFORE...  In the days of olde, when the Earth
 was still cooling and the dinosaurs ruled the planet (i.e. about 3 years
 ago), designers used to synthesize from Verilog or VHDL to a netlist,
 hand that netlist to the Foundry Gods, and do 'The Waiting'.  During 'The
 Waiting', the all-knowing, all-seeing Foundry Gods magically did P&R and
 other mystical things and eventually gave us back chips.  Now, in modern
 times, mystical P&R is creeping into synthesis.  And big synthesis running
 across *multiple* workstations is on the scene, too.

    "Synthesis:

     a) Merging of synth and layout is coming.  The best solution looks
        to be from the Cadence Ambit PKS/Envisia tool.  We need to get our
        hands on it.  Avanti is hurting without a real synth connection.
        Synopsys has Chip Architect as a stop-gap.  Most current solutions
        are tool combo's that take a couple of existing tools and have sort
        of a glue tool in between.  The down side is that the databases are
        still not capable with all the necessary info, and the user is
        required to wear two hats (needs to be P&R person plus RTL synth
        person to run them).  The Ambit PKS/Envisia stuff has the database
        best suited for both P&R for RTL features.  Theirs also looks like
        the easiest for an RTL person to use with minimal P&R knowledge.
        They are hungry to try it on a big chip.  They are hungry to drive
        Ambit.  I got no vibe from any Ambit/Cadence people about Cadence
        shelving BuildGates.  Quite the opposite.  Cadence may be fearing
        losing P&R buisness if they do not integrate synthesis and do the
        work up front.

     b) Automatic synth and distributed process runs.  Synopsys ACS is
        here.  It looks to be viable. It does distribution to multiple
        machines (using multiple licenses of course; they all do).  It only
        comes with an ultra license.  The Synopsys offering is a bit further
        along and changable by the user.  Ambit's offering is free, has
        more distributed stuff (like a very cool job status and control
        center), has the push button approach, but is less configurable.
        Both tools have nice stop, check and restart features.  Both are
        hungry to get these working on big designs.  We need a multi
        license, multi server environment to take advantage of the features.

     c) Post synth design exploration.  Synopsys is *finally* upgrading
        the older-than-time-itself Design Analyzer.  Auto cones of logic,
        with timing info.  No fix-on-the-fly yet, but they say it is coming.
        No name for it.  No word on if they will charge or give it free.
        I requested something like this 10 years ago.  Ambit has had this
        from the start, and theirs lets you fix stuff on the schematic
        for automatic updating.  Synopsys is doing a HDL compiler re-write."

         - an anon engineer