Framing out frameworks

Electronic News, July 27, 1992 by Jeff Dorsch

Two years ago, Digital Equipment Corp. and Cadence Design Systems Inc. joined with a host of electronic design software vendors to tout the PowerFrame Synergy Program, an effort to tie an assortment of packages into DEC's PowerFrame data management software.

Since then, the framework playing field has changed dramatically. Users have been shy about adopting the technology, wary about plunging into another design automation whizbang which will purportedly solve all their problems. Participants in the CAD Framework Initiative (CFI), who had high hopes four years ago of bringing some standards order to the chaotic world of electronic design automation (EDA) tools, have more recently adopted a more cautious approach to specifying intertool communications and other organizational questions.

In light of these changes, DEC is still diligently working to make PowerFrame a virtually ubiquitous element in framework schemes, capitalizing on EDA vendors' newfound willingness to OEM software which is outside their applications ken. Donald W. Jenkins, director of DEC's Electronics business, said in a recent interview that PowerFrame is enjoying "good acceptance among tool vendors," but "not as much among end-users." Viewlogic Systems Inc., for example, supports PowerFrame in its new Powerview software suite (EN, May 11).

With Cadence's acquisition of Valid Logic Systems Inc., "Cadence and Mentor have emerged as the two dominant players," Mr. Jenkins observed. "We need to adapt to a Cadence or Mentor environment."

Mentor Graphics Corp., which nearly a year ago stripped away its mechanical design, documentation and computer-aided software engineering lines to focus on EDA, is now open to working with other vendors in the area of product data management, and it counts PowerFrame among the utilities it may incorporate into its Falcon Framework kitbag. "We already have links with Control Data Corp., Structural Dynamics Research Corp. and Sherpa" for product data management software, said Deme Clainos, director of marketing for Mentor's Framework Products division.

In licensing database technology for future releases of Falcon, Mentor is considering employing PowerFrame in building the capability for users to have a "meta-data engine," Mr. Clainos said. No formal relationship exists between Mentor and DEC. Mentor was conspicuously absent from the roster of EDA vendors which signed up for the PowerFrame Synergy Program, and observers speculated that the Oregon company was concerned that PowerFrame might distract users from Falcon, which Mentor was rolling out in 1990.

Cadence remains a stalwart in using PowerFrame as the data management component of its Design Framework II, even with the complications of merging the Cadence and Valid framework schemes. Valid was a charter member of PowerFrame Synergy.

A framework is "a collection of services, design management being one of them," said John Kelley, Cadence's technical marketing manager for frameworks. Having addressed the issue of providing design management for individual users, Cadence is now working on design management for large teams of engineers, and that's where PowerFrame fits into Design Framework II. "Everywhere I go, people are having large-team problems," Mr. Kelley commented. "People are just dying for solutions."

Cadence has been active in modifying PowerFrame for its purposes, and DEC has committed to shipping a new version of the software to Cadence in September, according to Mr. Kelley.

With all the work on PowerFrame and the efforts of the CFI committees, there remain questions on what the users want, or--more importantly--what they will pay for. Mr. Jenkins of DEC, while pronouncing himself "happy with the effort and with the focus" of CFI, cautions that "Standards efforts generally take longer than expected...perhaps longer than people think today. There's not enough user demand for the things CFI is trying to do. When users speak with their dollars, that will make it more robust."