Cadence now realizing EDA 360 vision: Nimish Modi

The EDA 360 was an industry vision. It reflected a change in market requirements. It was application driven system design. From a Cadence perspective, the company has done system design enablement, according to Nimish Modi, senior VP, marketing and business development, Cadence Design Systems Inc.

In Apple's case, the iOS is unique. Cadence feels that the heart of the design is the SoC. The electrical analysis is becoming very important. For instance, how do you optimize before tape-out? Hardware and software conversion presents a huge problem as well. The IP plays an important part. Cadence did IP-as-a-service. It now has an IP strategy.

Today, EDA is about possibility, not productivity. Cadence provides tools and content for semiconductor and systems companies. It is now realizing the EDA 360 vision.

On IP
According to Modi, each IP is immensely complex. Standards based or interface IP is not enough! Silicon-proven design is the need of the hour. Now, more and more IP blocks are said to be coming together.

FPGA-based prototyping
Cadence is offering the Palladium XP, and its primary use is for system verification. Software development is becoming a little bit difficult. People are providing software prototypes. The Palladium compile, turnaround and debug are very fast, best-in-class. All memory, clocking, partitioning, etc., is now automated.

The capacity of the Protium platform is 100 million gates. It will enable hardware and software developers. The use model for Protium is:
* Hardware folks use it for hardware regression.
* Software folks use it for early software development.

The main value proposition is the faster bring-up time. Also, the Palladium hybrid model helps customers overcome the boot problem. It is a hybrid of emulation and virtual prototyping. The dynamic power analysis is another issue. The Palladium hybrid model helps to do the testing.

Collaboration with ARMARM provides processor IPs. Cadence works closely with ARM. Cadence is also co-optimizing its tools to provide the best PPA. Physical libraries and tools get optimized. Cadence's tools are optimized for ARM architecture. Cadence is also the first ones on the access to the V8 ARM models.