New routing tool likely to cover upcoming MCMM challenges: Hanns Windele, Mentor

This is a continuation of the previous post based on the recent India visit of Hanns Windele, VP Europe and India, Mentor Graphics, where he met key industry figures in a session organized by the India Semiconductor Association. Windele is standing sixth from left, and Poornima Shenoy, president, ISA is standing fifth from right.

Multimode, multicorner tools
Windele mentioned that in every likelihood, another new routing tool would be coming in once the industry enters the 45nm/32nm space. "There is an increasing static timing analysis signoff complexity. The explosive growth in complexity requires multimode and multicorner tools," he said.

Multicorner and multimode (MCMM) and manufacturing variability will drive the next generation place and route technology. Even in the low-growth markets, technical discontinuities create opportunities for market share changes. For instance, 65nm brings along more than 21 corners/modes scenarios; while 90nm has 10 corners, and 130nm only has four corners.

Therefore, another place and route tool will cover the upcoming MCMM problem. Even in low-growth markets, technical discontinuities create opportunities for market share changes.

Companies cannot afford the growing cost of EDA. Even the cost of design is growing exponentially, especially, verification, as well as embedded software development costs. Even the EDA revenue has been a flat 2 percent of the IC revenue. However, productivity has been growing as the number of engineers don't seem to be multiplying in a great way. For example, the transistors produced per electronic engineer has been hearly four-orders of magnitude since 1985.

Showing optimism in recession
Turning to the ongoing recession, which has impacted the semiconductor industry, Windele said that 2009 will be most likely turn out to be the worst recession in the history of the global semiconductor industry.

"It seems to be heading that way. There is also a lot of reason for optimism. I feel that 2009 will be a lot milder than 1985 and 2001," he said. Even the electronics indsutry's growth rates have been slowing, decade by decade as well.

Therefore, with this ongoing global recession, why should we remain optimistic? Simple! A crisis translates into opportunities!!

Betting on India
No prizes for guessing where the most opportunities lie -- India! Significantly, the 'middle class' in urban India becoming a majority. There is likely to be $3 trillion of discretionary spending by 2010. "People who can afford electronic and consumer goods will be growing further," he added.

Windele cited ISA's figures, which says that India's electronics consumption is headed toward $300 billion by 2015. India’s electronic equipment consumption will likely grow at a CAGR of 30 percent through 2015. It was around $28 billion in 2005, and is likely to increase to $127 billion by 2010, and to $363 billion by 2015.

Yet another reason is the growing number of new cell phone subscribers in China and India, which will be 2x larger than the total US subscribers until 2011. Asia is, by far, the most attractive market for new cell phone sales. India will grow fastest, he added.

Downturns compared
Comparing the downturns of the recent years, Windele noted that 2008 and 2009 look different than the other downturns. "There is hardly any inventory left in the industry. One prediction is: as the price upswing comes, prices in the semicon industry will go up very quickly," he noted.

Seeds already being sown for recovery in 2010. Already, the industry has experiecned two years of severe price declines in memory. Further, systems will be re-designed to take advantage of lower bit prices of FLASH and DRAM.

There will be consolidation and reduced investment in semiconductor capacity in 2008 and 2009. Ramp-up of new system designs will likely happen in 2010 during the period of reduced semiconductor supply.

Concluding, he added that Mentor Graphics became the number 1 EDA company in Europe as the company managed the crisis better than some of our competitors.