TI, Intel stress EDA challenges

Electronic News, June 24, 1996 by Carol Haber

New York--Texas Instruments and Intel are prodding the electronic design automation (EDA) community to speed up new tool development.

"You are not moving fast enough," said Pat Weber, vice chairman and acting president/CEO of Texas Instruments, prior to Thomas Engibous being named president and CEO last week (see story, page 1). Mr. Weber, who took over the TI helm upon the recent death of Jerry R. Junkins, spoke at a semiconductor panel session at the Bear Stearns Technology Conference here last week. "We are ahead of our suppliers," he added. "There is a real challenge in chip designs."

Also throwing the gauntlet down to EDA software vendors was Michael Aymar, VP/GM of desktop products at Intel. "As PC architecture gets more complicated, getting the engineering achievement to come up with the applications, rather than the physical limits on the IC, is the real challenge."

He added, "Barriers are not the physical number of transistors. It is important that the PC platform grow as fast as each of its subsystems, such as video and memory. Each of the components is improving but it is getting more difficult to grow them together and come up with a PC platform that delivers the performance."

Meanwhile, some disagreements between Intel and TI emerged on technology integration and other semiconductor manufacturing strategies. Discussing the combining of different technologies on the same chip, Intel's Mr. Aymar said: "You need to balance your manufacturing so you have leading-edge capability where you need it but not for technologies that don't require that density. You have to build a platform that makes sense. I would move away from high integration. We found it had some shortcomings. When you have lower-value transistors on the same die with high-value transistors, you are not being as profitable; it won't be cost-effective."

But noting that TI is broadly diversified and Intel more tightly focused, Mr. Weber countered: "We have beautiful capability of design tools and mixed technology on the same chip. Digital, analog...The company that has the broadest cell library on one chip and leading edge manufacturing capability--and lowest cost--well, you have to do it all and do it damn well," he said.

On fab investments, Intel prefers to go it alone, while TI is noted for its shared projects.

Mr. Aymar said, "You invest in capacity yourself. In certain areas that are important for your business, you might try to get a share in it with partners--such as flash memory for us. I would say, though, that in our core business, Intel will continue to invest heavily but make alliances around the fringe, where it makes sense."

Mr. Weber noted that shared investments mean a major discount in the cost of manufacturing.