editorial

Making Better Use of the World Wide Web The EDA and IP communities can use the Web more effectively to make money. by Jonah McLeod

I'm fascinated by what's occurring on the World Wide Web. Stock valuations for Web companies exceed reality over a hundredfold--take amazon.com, for example. In addition, the euphoria about what business is possible on the Web shows no signs of abating. What implications does the Web have for design automation?

I've always perceived that design automation is a special case on the Web. The EDA community was well established and effectively using the Internet before there was a World Wide Web, and Web sites with highly loyal followers, like John Cooley's ESNUG, were around long before such net communities as those based on Geocities and Who-Where came into vogue--America Online, Compuserve, and Prodigy notwithstanding. In addition, there are other usenet news groups on the Web where designers congregate to share information and views.

The question confronting everyone in the EDA and IP communities is how to use the Web more effectively to sell tools, offer services, and distribute intellectual property--in other words, how to make money using the new channel. Three approaches have been put forward. One idea is a storefront for selling EDA tools. Another is selling tool access over the Web--designs are uploaded to a tool vendor's site, run on a server, then returned when complete. Finally, there are proposals to sell cores and other silicon intellectual property over the Web.

Of the three, selling tools is by far the easiest to implement. PC software vendors are already doing that: Submit a credit card to the secure server on a vendor's Web site and then download the software into your machine over the Internet--the ultimate impulse purchase. The same approach can be used to sell PC-based EDA tools. Though there are plenty of tools ranging in price below $5,000, which would seem like good candidates, few suppliers have set up sales and distribution over the Web. I think that they're wasting an opportunity and that the first vendors to adopt this approach will swell their unit sales.

A vision proffered by Richard Newton of the University of California at Berkeley is to submit files to large compute servers on the Web. There are times during the course of a design when a team needs one or more copies of a tool to help during peak periods and there are plenty of small companies who need a license for a tool but can't afford the high one-time charge. To address those needs, why don't EDA tool vendors provide a server on-line so that any designer can submit his job and have it, say, simulated, synthesized, or laid out and returned when completed? The EDA vendor gets additional revenue, and the customer gets pay per use.

Furthermore, tool companies can offer engineering services in conjunction with the use of their tools. If a simulation fails to meet timing, why not buy the expertise of an on-line engineer to help solve the problem?

Finally, selling IP is perhaps the most exciting new business opportunity on the Web. Denali Software is trying this concept in partnership with Integrated System Design . Denali sells C memory models for just under $500. Download them free for a month, then if you want to keep them, pay the price to receive a key for unlimited use. The company's business is growing rapidly.

I recently met with representatives from IMEC, the research institute in Leuven, Belgium, partly funded by the Belgian government and the European Union. They described a C-language architectural simulator and a C-to-VHDL translator that allow them to model and simulate a design in C, then automatically convert the C into VHDL, which they simulate and synthesize into a final ASIC relatively quickly. IMEC has delivered two commercial designs for customers using the methodology and tools. (IMEC will describe the project in a future article.)

The capability of simulating an IP description in C with the rest of an ASIC design would allow a designer to evaluate different processors, memories, and other IP to determine the best solution. Once a choice was made, the IP vendor would supply the HDL code or the C-to-HDL translator so the design can be complete.

Here again the Web could be a mechanism for quickly making the conversion. Instead of obtaining the HDL code or the converter, the customer might transmit the C file to the IP vendor's server. For a fee plus the cost of the IP, the server would convert the entire design into HDL for simulation and synthesis.

Let me know what you think of these ideas and what you'd like to see offered. Write to me at jonah@isdmag.com.

To voice an opinion on this or any Integrated System Design article, please email your message to miker@isdmag.com.

integrated system design  February 1999