Editorial

An Open Letter to the EDA Industry, or Tilting at Windmills Readers are speaking out loud and clear for Linux, but the EDA software and hardware vendors are hearing-challenged. by Jonah McLeod

My editorial last month struck a strong chord--or should I say, hit a nerve--with a good number of readers. At this writing, I've received a flood of e-mail messages taking sides in the Windows NT­Linux operating system debate, and the large majority of them are not just pro-Linux, they're decidedly anti-NT. (We'll report on the responses in the June issue.) However, I must report that I'm having the devil of a time getting any support from anyone in the hardware or software segments of the EDA industry for Linux.

Even long-time Linux supporter Exemplar Logic seems to have lost heart for the struggle. It recently announced that it will no longer support Linux in future generations of its synthesis tool.

Linux appears to be caught in a difficult situation. It's not a commercially supported operating system, and therefore neither hardware vendors nor software suppliers want to produce products for it.

Furthermore, there's a great irony in Intel's strategy, as I noted in last month's editorial. Intel and Microsoft are the major players in the PC industry. Indeed, both are giants--Intel, the largest semiconductor manufacturer in the world, and Microsoft, the largest software company in the world--who are forced to cooperate by their common market and their respective spheres of dominance. The last piece of the computing pie of any significance for both Intel and Microsoft to capture is the scientific and engineering applications long dominated by Unix running on workstations and servers. But, as I said, you'd think that Intel--which has no great incentive to help Microsoft dominate the EDA market--would recognize the value of Linux on a PC and push it as the OS of choice for the Pentium platform.

The value proposition Intel and Microsoft are offering the managers directing these scientists and engineers is lower-cost hardware and software computing platforms (but see the comments in "Feedback: EDA Platform," p. 72). The users, however, see a heavy-handed play on the part of the two PC giants to force the solution onto the market. Moreover, the experience of the scientists and engineers that responded to my editorial had real concerns about the efficacy of Windows NT.

Many of the respondents reported that NT was simply not industrial-strength enough for their applications. They reported instances of Windows NT crashing daily, whereas their experience with Linux was months of uptime. This great disparity in reliability is a major factor in users'--especially technical users'--claim that Windows NT is not a more cost-effective EDA solution than Linux or Unix.

Those responding to my editorial often draw a clear distinction between the operating system and the computing platform. Most don't object to the hardware platform being a PC. Rather, they specifically cited the operating system as the main bone of contention. With hardware, reliability is more a function of cost--you simply won't get an industrial-strength desktop machine or server if you pay a bargain basement price. In fact, Intel has already won the platform wars. Both Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems have adopted Pentium technology for their next-generation workstations.

So it's truly a great irony that Intel seems compelled to help Microsoft try to dominate the scientific and engineering market segment. It's no secret that there is no love lost between the two giants, but now Intel is seeking to help Microsoft overcome a superior operating system with one that by all accounts is inferior. Furthermore, EDA software companies are following them in lockstep.

Alas, all appears lost. But . . .

"Luckless that I am!" says Don Quixote, upon hearing the sad news from his squire. "I had rather they despoiled me of an arm, so it were not the sword-arm; for I tell thee, Sancho, a mouth without teeth is like a mill without a millstone, and a tooth is much more to be prized than a diamond; but we who profess the austere order of chivalry are liable to all this. Mount, friend, and lead the way, and I will follow thee at whatever pace thou wilt."

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integrated system design  May 1998