Memec has global designs

Electronic News, March 23, 1998 by Ann Steffora

San Diego, Calif.--As an alternative to going to a design firm for FPGA outsourcing, Memec Design Services (MDS), a subsidiary of Insight Electronics and part of Memec International Components Group (MICG), provides design services around the world.

As companies feel the pain of time-to-market pressure, outsourcing designs--or parts of them--become more attractive, if not essential. In fact, MDS has been hard at work to expand its network of design centers, bringing the total to 14, as of the end of last month. Tim Smith, director of MDS said locations in Sydney and Melbourne will be added soon, along with Hong Kong and Taipei, which are planned for Q3. The organization has thus far completed more than 600 Xilinx FPGA designs in support of MICG, one of Xilinx's largest international distributors.

For new designs, MDS works with customers on everything from developing design specifications and design reviews to full turnkey designs. They have 13 IP cores targeted at Xilinx designs and will perform the integration and optimization, which is more IP than other design services companies can offer, Mr. Smith contends.

In the case of existing ASIC or obsolete FPGAs, MDS will do the conversion on these designs, which can bring new life to an end-of-life design. MDS performs VHDL or Verilog database transcriptions, converting older schematic and HDL designs to current FPGA design tools that enable the customer to modify or build logic around the design. MDS is a better alternative than some design work done by design automation companies, Mr. Smith explains, because it is focused on FPGA designs, whereas even Xilinx engineers are likely to be concentrating on tool interoperability and re-targeting designs.

More Than Just A Distributor

Mr. Smith explained further that it is, of course, the job of Insight salespeople to do demand creation and give technical information to engineers. But MDS adds to this by approaching the customer when they are defining the scope and specification of a project, then gives the customer a solution based around the Insight linecard. "The old distribution model is to wait for the bill of materials and then ship the product. MDS wants to partner with customers earlier in the cycle and help them with design needs. We want to be a womb-to-tomb supplier," Mr. Smith added.

Since 1996, when MDS began, this model seems to have been successful. Last year, MDS completed 82 designs by 14 engineers, mainly for datacom, telecom and video customers including ScanQuest, Ford Microelectronics, Cisco and Newbridge Networks. MDS' Ottowa, Canada efforts are located on the Newbridge campus. Mr. Smith said MDS completed nearly $1 million in services in 1997 and expects to do $2.8 million in 1998.

MDS also approaches its pricing model in a unique way. For the most part, instead of charging for designs, MDS licenses the completed design to customers, and add the IP to its library. In focusing more on IP integration by working with such companies as the Virtual IP Group, and V Automation, MDS is able to gain experience in those areas and also provide those IP companies with access to a global market.

Future projects include a CD-ROM of cores in netlist form and will also include a demo copy of Synplicity's FPGA demo compiler, which Insight distributes. The CD-ROM will be announced soon and will ship in May for $99. MDS also supplies free libraries on its webpage (http://www.memecdesign.com), which are the result of building customized library components for designing logic within Xilinx FPGAs: One-Hot State Machine Library, LFSR Design Kit, MUX Library and Fast Adders with 4-Bit Look-Ahead. u

Memec Designs Around the World:

Locations:

London, U.K.
Phoenix, Ariz.
Munich, Germany
Sacramento, Calif.
Nesbru, Norway
Ottowa, Canada
Van Taa, Finland
San Jose, Calif.
Stockholm, Sweden
Huntsville, Ala.
Zurich, Switzerland
Boston, Mass.
Guadalajara,
Mexico City, Mexico

Source: Memec