Ambit, Chrysalis in ASIC design plan

Electronic News, August 18, 1997

Santa Clara, Calif. Ambit Design Systems and Chrysalis Symbolic Design announced last week that they have signed a three-year working agreement to develop together software and methodologies for high-end, high-performance ASIC design. The arrangement is designed to benefit both companies as customers look to implement synthesis and formal verification electronic design automation (EDA) tools that work together in production.

The increasing complexity of ASIC designs has magnified the need for EDA tools that work well together. Chrysalis believes the agreement should make it and Ambit more attractive to customers because of the obvious advantages of using synthesis and formal verification companies that have a good working relationship. "When working with 500,000- to 1,000,000-gate design, it really becomes a necessity," said Isadore Katz, Chrysalis VP of marketing.

The two companies are hoping that the agreement, which includes provisions for cross-training employees on each other's products, will result in a faster, more accurate way to design ASICs of 200MHz on 1,000,000-gate designs at 0.25 microns and below. They claim designers are losing confidence in the existing methodology, which was developed for designs "at one-tenth the performance and complexity."

Currently, each company has products among the top ones in its market. Ambit's BuildGates is a synthesis product which claims to cut the designer's synthesis time in half. Chrysalis' Design Verifyer is a formal verification checking product that eliminates functional regression simulation and reduces the time to verify design implementation and revisions. Both products are optimized for today's complex ASICs. With the agreement signed, the companies must now develop a method for making these products work together smoothly.

"We arrived at this partnership after realizing that Chrysalis and Ambit have a shared vision of what is going to be required for next-generation ASICs," Mr. Katz said. Part of the advantage of the agreement, he said, is that it prevents one company from blaming the other company should a problem arise with the way the tools are working together. "And, with the cross-training and shared methodology, we can make joint recommendations to customers about implementing our products." According to Atul Sharan, Ambit director of strategic relations, Ambit has formal and informal agreements with many leading EDA companies, as well as the development deal it recently announced with IBM (EN, April 21). That agreement is to develop a design flow for high-performance, million-gate chip designs taking advantage of the emerging delay calculation (DCS) system standards. "When you are doing million-plus gate design, I think you will see the new breed of EDA companies working together with agreements such as this," Mr. Sharan said. "Designers using BuildGates and Design Verifyer will be getting best-of-breed solution from two focused companies working together to deliver superior synthesis and verification tools," said Prakash Bhalerao, president and CEO of Ambit. "Design teams using Chrysalis' tools have saved weeks and months by replacing simulation with formal verification to design complex ASICs and ICs. Our customers can only benefit from this relationship."