In the "big data" era, do chip designers themselves use big data? They face a huge amount of raw data - from the tools provided by different EDA vendors. However, have they found a good way to use big data to optimize and accelerate chip design?
When it comes to "big data", everyone cannot miss it. It is widely used in fields such as biotechnology, finance, agriculture, education, and transportation. All industries hope to use it to reshape the essence of their business.
But what about the semiconductor industry?
For this reason, ICManage Inc., a solution provider that provides design data and IP management software for chip companies, recently released the "Big Data Labs".
DeanDrako
DeanDrako, CEO of ICManage, described this BigDataLabs as a "platform" and hoped to design customers for ICs to "develop and customize new design analysis tools based on bigdata".
In the "big data" era, semiconductor companies have already designed ICs for data centers. But the question is whether these chip designers themselves use big data. They already have a huge amount of raw data - from the tools provided by different EDA vendors.
However, did electronic designers find a good way to use big data to optimize and accelerate chip design?
In simple terms, the answer is "not yet."
Of course, the semiconductor industry has used data management software for many years. Laurie Balch, chief analyst at GarySmithEDA, explained that ICManage has always been committed to providing "a tool that keeps large amounts of data secure and organized so that data can be accessed by others." But for analysis tools that allow IC designers to apply data to intelligent decision-making, Balch said: "We are now in the start-up phase that is just beginning to be usable."
ICManage is not a traditional EDA supplier. Balch explained that it is not manufacturing traditional EDA tools such as simulation, synthesis or layout. On the contrary, the company's expertise lies in "EDA enterprise tools." Balch described ICManage as a company "occupying a place in the IC design database market."
In this era of "electronic design is known for creating large amounts of data," she found that chip suppliers are facing the ever-increasing challenge of how to effectively manage data. ICManage may be the first company to propose a solution.
Unstructured data
Drako explained that by definition "big data" is made up of a large amount of unstructured data.
He admits that the field of electronic design has seen the enormous challenges posed by unstructured data - from various tools designed by different EDA companies.
However, most IC designers do not have enough tools to absorb these things, let alone how to understand them. After all, doing so is time-consuming and resource-consuming.
Drako also emphasized that it is not easy to link independent data sets between tools and suppliers.
In addition, he added: “Only a few industries and companies have sufficient expertise and available resources†to quickly develop viable insights and create management options and implementation details.
This is where ICManage hopes the company will work.
Drako explained that ICManage superimposes unstructured data on organized design data. "By combining unstructured data (such as verification record files) and structured data (electronic design data), we provide a hybrid database, "which allows chip companies to perform high-performance, advanced EDA analysis.
ICManage's key technology - BigDataLabs; how to create a hybrid database?
The result of ICManage's hope is to implement a platform that provides visual analysis and help users create interactive reports.
Chip sample prediction
This is not the first time that ICManage has provided IC vendors with big data design tools.
A few years ago, the company developed a big data product called 'EnvisionDesignProgressAnalytics', which provided the basis for ICManage's customers to accurately predict the appearance of their new chip.
With the introduction of BigDataLabs, ICManage is taking a step forward. It is not enough to organize big data and make it available to everyone in the design team or the entire company.
ICManage hopes to further develop (and possibly customize) new tools by working closely with customers (chip companies) and partners (EDA tool vendors) to allow designers to track the contributions of each designer, revision histories, IP reuse and various actions. The resulting tools allow designers to see the impact of their decisions on the design process. Drako pointed out that the analysis provided will also help it make informed decisions.
Functional verification tools
ICManage also launched EnvisionVerification, the first verification and analysis tool based on the BigDataLabs platform. ICManage said that using the ability of the platform to connect to a multi-vendor environment, the tool provides "nearly immediate visual analysis."
Drako said: "To understand what is happening, EnvisionVerification obtains all validation data from different EDA vendor environments (such as Verilog, Mentor, and Cadence) and tracks design activity, regression testing, and verification status, as well as errors that occur. Find out the changes."
Without such big data validation, Drako said: "Traditionally, if you are part of a team of 300 engineers, you may have to spend a lot of time asking around:" What did you change? ", which Have you done a test?â€, “Who broke?†or “We missed something?†and so on.â€
Through interactive verification results reports, Drako said: "Envision helps to accelerate functional verification analysis by a factor of 10 to 100. Not only can bottlenecks be identified, but root causes can also be found for problems that arise during verification."
Analyst Balch explained that verification is a "very significant challenge" for electronic designers. She said that because everyone's goal is "first-time right" design and manufacturing - limited by the cost of chip redesign, "the designer must verify it." She pointed out that verification involves many aspects of testing. "The results will also change with the operating conditions, so we must also understand the extreme cases."
The first tool introduced by ICManage's latest BigDataLabs is this functional verification tool. In addition, the company's other logical big data analysis products include physical verification, timing analysis, and power consumption.
Drako pointed out that functional verification includes many parts, including simulations for semiconductors, circuits, digital and analog designs. Therefore, Balch speculates that ICManage will continue to develop its functional verification tools for a long time, including customization.
Who uses this tool?
Balch said that it is undeniable that the use of data management tools "takes off slowly" between chip companies. Considering the budget, chip designers prefer to purchase core design tools rather than big data analysis tools. "They don't think this is important, but they also think that this applies only to large design teams."
As the semiconductor industry continues to be involved in huge mergers and acquisitions, changes in the environment may be faster than previously forecasted. For example, if Broadcom successfully acquired Qualcomm, then imagine how big the data management nightmare would be for the design teams within the two giants. The merged company must monitor the progress of different design teams to ensure that everyone can share design information and IP.
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