( SNUG 03 Item 11 ) ---------------------------------------------- [05/14/03]
Subject: Synplicity, Mentor Exemplar, Synopsys FPGA Compiler II
ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING: Not too long ago, the FPGA synthesis world was
a classic battle of Mentor Exemplar vs. Synopsys. Then Synplicity came onto
the scene and opened a can of whoop ass on both Synopsys and Exemplar. In
2001, Synopsys had 35% of this market. Last year, they had 14%. This year
the Dataquest numbers leave them a paltry 7%:
Dataquest FY 2001 FPGA Synthesis Market (in $ Millions)
Synplicity ############################ $28.2 (54%)
Mentor/Exemplar ################### $19.3 (37%)
Synopsys #### $3.7 (7%)
others # $1.0 (2%)
But before you assume that Synopsys' share is gonna drop to 0%, their FPGA
Compiler II fits into this niche and it's not dying any time soon because
it's really a FPGA <--> ASIC migration tool (i.e. it's filling a distinct
niche that needs to be filled):
"Q 20: Describe your use of FPGAs/CPLDs for your current design."
ASIC Prototyping #################### 39%
Use them for full
production products ##### 9%
Use them for pre-
production products #### 7%
Not using FPGAs ########################## 51%
With 37% of ASIC designers using FPGAs for protyping, there will always be a
demand for an ASIC synthesis tool that gets you to & from FPGAs.
But, outside of FPGA <--> ASIC migration, Synplicity completely rules the
FPGA synthesis business.
P.S. what's this unannounced DC-FPGA tool that I'm just hearing mentioned?
"Synplicity vs. FPGA Compiler II. I don't really think Synopsys is
going to catch up with Synplicity for a while. However, from the user
point of view, I can see how Synopsys could get most of the market
because of their large ASIC synthesis market that will benefit from
a tool fully compatible (scripts-wire) with DC."
- Santiago Fernandez-Gomez of Pixim, Inc.
"FC2 is piece of junk. Everyone knows that and even Synopsys admits
that. But DC-FPGA looks very promising. We just started using it.
Synplicity is good, but it's missing the DesignWare stuff that we
use heavily."
- Wilson Chan of Qualcomm
"Synplicity is well-regarded here for FPGAs. I don't think anyone has
looked at Exemplar in a while. I think FPGA Compiler II is not used
much here, perhaps because the FPGA vendors recommend Synplicity."
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
"We've been using FPGAs to prototype the digital logic of the ASICs we
design. As of about August last year, we had evaluated all three FPGA
synthesis tools (and we had extensive experience with FCII because
FPGA Express -- which is basically the same synthesis engine as FCII;
was bundled with Xilinx's tools for a few years).
My summary:
- Synopsys' FPGA Compiler II is *way* behind the other guys in
capacity & quality of results. What took us 10 hours for one
job in FCII took 20 *minutes* in Synplicity's tool. Another job
didn't complete in FCII after *36 hours*, but Synplify took 45
minutes. Exemplar compile times were comparable to Synplify Pro.
- Synplicity's "post-layout" timing results (i.e., after going through
Xilinx's back-end) actually weren't quite as good as what we
achieved with FCII -- when FCII would actually converge. The
difference was only a few %; it was more important to us to have
the design capacity. Exemplar's results were the slowest of the 3.
So obviously, we chose Synplify Pro.
Synopsys was promising to have a new tool out at the end of last year
or Q1 this year, but I haven't seen anything about it. Interesting.
Mentor has at least announced their new tool: Precision Synthesis.
Should include that in your tools survey. Don't know if they're
really shipping it yet or if it's in beta. It wasn't ready when we
were doing our selection."
- Kris Monsen of Mobilygen
"Exemplar is the one ahead! We are used to implementing our FPGA's with
their Leonardo for years. Synopsys was late behind. Leonardo showed
often better results and is easier to use than the FPGA Compiler."
- Markus Schutti of Infineon
"You also forgot the FPGA vendor's tools. Both Altera and Xilinx claim
equivalent QoR as Synplify (how true it is, I don't know). I have the
impression Synplicity is working upstream, and FPGA-vendor's tools are
chasing Synplicity."
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
"It's not even close. Synplicity, no matter what you have to say about
it, has clear domination in the FPGA synthesis market. I don't see
this changing, nor do I see a need for it to change."
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
"Since I don't use GUIs for synthesis, I just use QoR to evaluate FPGA
synthesis. FC2 has shown better results post P&R in the benchmarks
that I ran. To be perfectly honest, none of the current FPGA synthesis
tools can really handle the types of problems that we see in large FPGA
designs. All of the effort is currently spent in the backend to close
timing. Does this sound familiar?"
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
"Synplicity is best. Have chance to benchmark those three. All of
the result worked. (Xilinx VertexE device) In terms of performance,
Synplify is best, FPGA compiler and Exemplar are almost same."
- Tie Li of Applause Technolgy
"We use Synplicity, looking forward to trying their ASIC version."
- Ross Swanson of Flextronics
"FPGA Compiler was never a good tool. Synopsys took their "A" team off
of FPGA Compiler and moved it to DC. It has always been a "give-away"
tool. Exemplar is fading. No one is left from the original company
that Mentor bought (OK, maybe 2 people...). Mentor never knew what to
do with Exemplar and it has stalled out. Synplicity is king of the
FPGA synthesis heap. Axis uses Synplicity to synthesize the new Xilinx
based Xtreme-II and it works pretty well.
I see/hear that Synopsys is fleecing Synplicity R&D of the better
people now (including several that were at Exemplar originally.)"
- [ An Anon Engineer ]
"Synplicity, speed and utilization."
- Rex Tung of InProComm
"When taking over a Xilinx implementation from another engineer who has
heavily relied on Exemplar's Leonardo for synthesis in a Xilinx core,
I found Synplify Pro to work poorly. The two main problems I had were
Synplify's inability to handle smartly the Xilinx core blocks and the
ability to set top-level VHDL generics during synthesis. These two
"problems", I've heard, will be fixed with the next release in June.
On clean code that uses no Xilinx core, I have found Synplify produces
faster circuits in less time.
I have no experience with FPGA Compiler II."
- Aaron Byman of Elektrobit Finland
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