( ESNUG 585 Item 8 ) ---------------------------------------------- [03/27/19]
Subject: 28nm vs. 7nm, AMS, Virtuoso, CDNS Innovus vs. SNPS IC Compiler 2
DAC'18 Troublemakers Panel in San Francisco
Cooley: So one of the things I got when I had the questions I asked
openly was, I said what were good edgy questions? A lot of users
mentioned 28 nanometer is still the node that a lot of designs
are going at. It's sexy to talk at 7 nanometer, but a ton of
chips are going out at 28. Are you chasing the node just because
it's sexy.
I mean look at the customers for 7 nanometer, it's going to be...
what is it, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Apple, maybe Samsung, you know
it's going to just be a handful. Whereas at 28 there's a ton.
Anirudh: First of all, I think there are a lot of customers at 7. And a
lot of customers had FinFET, but there is what I would call,
there is always a bimodal distribution in the customer base,
which is there to stay. There are certain customers that are
chasing capacity, or performance, or very, very high-volume
markets, who will always go to the lowest node because ROI is
tremendous, right? You get much bigger chips, you get much
better performance. And I think a lot of customers are moving to
7, and 5, and 3. So I think that is going to continue.
And then the second part of the bimodal distribution is more
driven by analog mixed signal. And that can 28, it's driven by
integration of embedded flash and all kinds of sensors and mems
on the chips. And that can be 28, 40, 65, 90, and all this.
I think it's important to both modes of this bimodal
distribution, and for the analog mixed signal case, of course the
digital solution is important, but also the analog solution and
the mixed signal solution that Innovus and Virtuoso provide.
So I think this is there to stay, there will be a natural bimodal
distribution. But recently I do see a lot of new customers
moving to FinFET and lower nodes. That is good for the industry
as a whole.
Cooley: Mo, what do you guys use?
Mo: We use Innovus.
Cooley: Why?
Mo: It works great.
Cooley: Did you not look at IC Compiler 2?
Mo: We looked at... we looked at several tools for various reasons
other than just performance. We settled at Innovus. But Innovus
is performing better when it comes to really advanced nodes. And
we are digitizing the analog in really advanced nodes and that
was the tool of choice.
Cooley: Is a hook to inside Virtuoso the key on that or was it Innovus by
itself?
Mo: So our technology is basically digital. It's analog implemented
using digital circuits, digital tools. So we're not dependent on
Virtuoso. But there were reasons, like we do full custom all the
way to automatic digital and we do the full flow, so we needed
the a suite of solutions.
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Related Articles:
Anirudh and Sawicki on why CDNS and MENT did the Cloud this year
Costello dissecting Montana, Rocketick, Palladium, Zebu, Veloce
28nm vs. 7nm, AMS, Virtuoso, CDNS Innovus vs. SNPS IC Compiler 2
Costello on EDA ossification, cloud, and RedHawk vs. GreenHawk
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