[HN Gopher] The Next Incarnation of EDA
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The Next Incarnation of EDA
Author : mindcrime
Score : 19 points
Date : 2022-09-13 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (semiengineering.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (semiengineering.com)
| buildbot wrote:
| I really hope Lattice ends up leaning into the open source
| symbiflow toolchains, it is amazingly awesome to have a decently
| sized FPGA that run Linux, that could even self host it's own
| firmware compilation. (VERY SLOWLY!)
| jstx1 wrote:
| Electronic design automation apparently, not exploratory data
| analysis.
| artisanspam wrote:
| I don't think that most software engineers understand how they
| good they have it with access to open source software. The most
| apt comparison I can think of to EDA is a mathematical computing
| environment (MATLAB, Mathematica, Maple, etc.) but an order of
| magnitude more constrained.
|
| _Everything_ in EDA is licensed. Simulators, emulators,
| synthesis, IDEs, formal verification, coverage, waveform viewers,
| and most post-silicon tools. You work with Intel /ARM? Any tools
| they make are licensed, too. You can't make CI/CD pipelines when
| you only have 3 $1000 compiler licenses for your whole company.
| Your JetBrains suite that costs $300/year for dozens of IDEs?
| It's not uncommon for HDL IDE licenses to be >$1000 for a single
| user.
|
| Contrast that to most traditional software development, where the
| cost is solely in how much compute you're using.
|
| I know that open-source EDA doesn't necessarily mean FOSS EDA,
| but that "free" part _really_ is what 's needed here.
| digdugdirk wrote:
| And here I am designing physical consumer products thinking the
| people in EDA have it good.
|
| A single license of CAD software with an FEA analysis add-on
| can easily run you $15k. Then the thought of shelling out for
| physical product testing will make you cry yourself to sleep.
| buildbot wrote:
| And Autodesk is a detestably evil company to boot.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Professional electronic design tools go through the
| stratosphere on pricing. There is lower demand than
| mechanical CAD tooling so they have to charge more to cover
| development costs. Lower demand also means that open source
| offerings usually pale in comparison to pro level tools from
| 20 years ago or more.
| iron2disulfide wrote:
| The $1k figure quoted by OP is not indicative of the average
| price of licenses in my experience. There are plenty of tools
| that are $15k+ in the EDA world, and various engineers in
| chip design orgs are always battling about who gets to use
| them and when. There are whole teams in big SoC design shops
| dedicated to managing and procuring licenses.
|
| I was pretty far removed from the license procurement and
| budgeting aspect of my last chip design job, but IIRC we were
| in the multi-millions per year in various EDA tool licenses.
| That figure may or may not have included IP licenses for pre-
| designed off-the-shelf subsystems.
| nsteel wrote:
| Same. We pay millions of dollars for our simulator
| licenses. Same again for physical design/layout licenses.
| These are for the standard ('best') industry tools, no IP.
| No idea what you get for $1k.
| artisanspam wrote:
| I hadn't even brought up IP licensing but you're right.
| That's another order of magnitude of cost and it's
| incredibly important.
| [deleted]
| MayeulC wrote:
| You can get pretty far with yosys, icarus verilog, various
| spice simulators and gtkwave, but I agree.
|
| At least, interchange formats are pretty well specified
| (netlists, HDL, waveforms...), maybe except for the proprietary
| "Open Access" format.
| artisanspam wrote:
| If you suggest using those tools for most industry
| semiconductor work you'll be laughed out of the room. I wish
| it wasn't the case, but these tools aren't good enough for
| most industry use cases.
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