Escalade plots new graphical EDA approach

Electronic News, Feb 6, 1995 by Jeff Dorsch

SUNNYVALE, CALIF.--Addressing IC designers who have complained for years about difficulty with electronic design automation (EDA) software, Escalade is moving closer toward ease-of-use with its new DesignBook suite, which allows graphical control of a number of tools without having to learn the syntax of hardware description languages (HDLs) or the idiosynerasies of synthesis software.

Escalade, a two-year-old start-up (EN, Nov. 14, 1994), is hoping to bring more people into high-level design automation (HLDA) by cushioning their entry into EDA. DesignBook provides a design environment which is conceptually similar to a design framework, but Escalade is not in the business of selling frameworks, having seen larger EDA vendors' inability to convince customers that they needed to use a framework to work more productively in an attempt to build up sales and lock in customers.

DesignBook is targeted at "improving high-level productivity," according to Jerry Rau, Escalade's director of product marketing. "Today, you really need to know the language, VHDL or Verilog. You have to know what is synthesizable--only a subset of the language is. And you have to think like a hardware designer."

The product is patterned after an engineer's notebook, or perhaps a whiteboard in a conference room, where design concepts are sketched out by a project team. What usually happens today is that an engineer is given the task of realizing the concepts through writing thousands of lines of HDL code.

DesignBook works with HDL-based tools, and generates HDL code, but insulates the designer from having to write the code. It also allows the designer the flexibility to write or edit VHDL or Verilog code, if that is the designer's preference.

Another difference is that DesignBook is what Mr. Rau called a "design-centric" suite of software, rather than the traditional "tool-centric" approach to IC and system design. The actual design stays contral to the environment; not tools in front. it's like a filter; it colors the way I look at the design. The designer still chooses the simulator, the synthesis software, but he interacts with these tools through the design."

Some industry observers don't see a radically new approach in DesignBook, but Rita Glover of the EDA Today consulting firm is impressed by Escalade's technology, calling it "a paradigm shift" and "a totally new way of working" which functions as "a wrapper around existing tools" with "a seamless interface."

The industry will have to embrace certain changes to achieve true system-level design, Ms. Glover said. These include "an interface based on your particular application" and interoperability of tools. "The whole industry is moving to a whole new level of abstraction. Escalade understands this."

She described DesignBook as "a design flow manager, but it's more than that; it manages data." And the concept is not entirely unique to Escalade; Ms. Glover said Mentor Graphics is developing a similar product.

Escalade is disparaged by a potential competitor as 'a late entrant." Daniel Skilken, senior VP of marketing at Summit Design, said that he hasn't seen DesignBook himself, but he has heard about it through customers which have been exposed to the product. "We've got a pretty good idea of what they're doing. Their design entry is similar to what we're doing. They're adding a framework capability to encapsulate synthesis tools. They do not have a simulator capability."

Escalade has not developed a simulator itself, but DesignBook will be able to access a number of simulators, such as the V-System VHDL simulator from Model Technology.

Mr. Miller of Escalade emphasized the company is not entering the framework business, as some have supposed. The term framework 'has no meaning to most people and a bad meaning to some people. We do have a developmental infrastructure. We don't sell it; there's no Escalade framework."

Mr. Skilken said "we haven't seen a lot of demand" for the graphical input that DesignBook offers. Also, "You've got to work very closely with synthesis and simulation providers. We've got an installed base of users that drove our relations with third-party suppliers. For someone coming in late into this marketplace, that's something they're going to have to build."

Still, the Summit executive expressed some admiration for Escalade's contribution to changing design methodology. "What we're really talking about is next-generation design entry," he said, and having more companies advancing that technology is beneficial for the industry. Steve Tsubota, Summit's director of marketing, said DesignBook "demos very well; it's a flashy product, for sure."

DesignBook is immediately available on Microsoft Windows platforms, with pricing starting at $14,500. it will be available in 2Q on Sun Microsystems platforms; pricing for the Unix version starts at $25,000.

Escalade is building a sales organization to target key accounts with direct sales and other potential customers with indirect sales channels. The company has a telesales function at present.