Re-Spins

Re-spins became more expensive as mask costs increased exponentially but fortunately verification software improved relentlessly largely thanks to Mentor Graphics

Re-spins became more expensive as mask costs increased exponentially but fortunately verification software improved relentlessly largely thanks to Mentor Graphics

“When I was a designer in the ‘70s and ‘80s, if we got by with less than five re-spins we were doing well,” recalled long-time Mentor CEO, Wally Rhines, “then we did a couple more spins to get full functionality, and there was always a clean-up spin for the parametrics.“

In those days ‘first time right silicon’ carried a different meaning.

“People used to say someone has first pass functionality when what they meant was they had parts where they could actually detect electronic activity!” Said Rhines.

When mask costs were$100,000, the cost of re-spins didn’t matter as much as the three months they added to time-to-market.

Now,with mask costs approaching $1 million (in 2003) the cost is more important than the three month delay.

“That’s actually good for us because what it says is that the cost of failure is going up, and so reducing the risk of failure becomes more valuable. We sell software that reduces the risk of failure,”pointed out Rhines,”many people would say it’s very expensive software but,if you can save $1 million the first time you use it,then maybe it’s not so expensive.”

The re-spin issue could be solved today if people were prepared to spend more time and money on verification.

”It’s an issue of how much verification you want to do, versus how painful is it for you to have those re-spins,” said Rhines.

The task for the EDA industry is for each company to focus on what it does best.

”In a public forum people might say you should buy everything from one supplier, but I think we’ll always end up with one best in class for each thing -that’s the way it has gone,and that’s the way it still is, and probably will be forever,” said Rhines.

“You’re never going to change the fact that Mentor dominates the physical verification space, Synopsys dominates Asic logic synthesis, and Cadence dominates analogue layout,”added Rhines,”so everyone dominates something, and nobody dominates everything. But people want a design flow that works well together – so the trick is how to make those tools work together.”