0806DotOrg-Si2.doc
Keywords: ASIC, Methods-Tools, OpenAccess, DFM
@head: Si2 Makes Continuous Progress
@text: The Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2) has kept up its momentum and growth. To fulfill its mission, it has further expanded its range of projects and services. Read on if you care about efficient and interoperable design flows, accurate and portable libraries, efficient model characterization, improved manufacturing yield, or low-power design flows.
Si2’s flagship project, OpenAccess, has continued to make strong and steady progress toward mainstream adoption. It is beating the odds with production flows and tape-out successes through 65 nm, more than 30 EDA-vendor integrations, a trusted community-defined standard, and dedicated engineering support. Reported improvements of 3X capacity and 10X performance gain are proof of its modern architecture and design.
Si2 provides downloads of production C++ source code for the OpenAccess reference implementation as well as up-to-date documentation, tutorials, online training, and value-added software utilities. For example, ‘OAdebug’ is a productivity tool from Si2 engineering that vows to help developers efficiently navigate the design hierarchy in OpenAccess data structures. Quarterly updates, such as the latest 2.2.6 release, provide backward and forward compatibility. OpenAccess also offers major vendor tool support, such as Cadence’s entire 6.1 tool suite, Mentor’s Calibre tool suite, and upcoming production support from Synopsys and Magma. In addition, it enables a new wave of innovative EDA companies like Silicon Navigator and Ciranova.
Library characterization, modeling, and run-time consistency have become showstoppers for advanced timing, power, and signal-integrity needs. The Open Modeling Coalition (OMC), which launched just one year ago, has made great progress quickly. OMC members have already released several Si2 standards including ECSM with power extension support. The OMC statistical working group is releasing a specification that guides the industry on content requirements for statistical analysis. At this year’s Design Automation Conference (DAC), Cadence, Magma, Extreme DA, ARM, Virage Logic, and Altos Design announced that they’re collaborating through the Open Modeling Coalition to develop an industry-standard library format for statistical analysis.
This year’s DAC also witnessed the kickoff meeting for the Liberty Technical Advisory Board that was newly formed under Si2. Synopsys has turned over the change management process for all Liberty enhancements, which include CCS extensions, to Si2. Si2 facilitates the group’s operating and voting processes. It also seeks to facilitate the convergence of CCS and ECSM under the OMC.
The Design to Manufacturing Coalition is an alliance of leading semiconductor, manufacturing, and EDA companies. They are establishing standards for the exchange of design and manufacturing data that will lead to faster processing times, higher yields, and lower support costs. Recently, this coalition defined the specific parameters that are required for key steps in manufacturing, such as clear semantics. It also is constructing matching data models and application programming interfaces (APIs) based upon donations from Ponte Solutions and Aprio. These APIs can be utilized to define a common industry-standard container for different classes of equations (custom or standard), which relate design intent and manufacturing parameters for yield prediction. Furthermore, this DFM-model container can easily integrate the IP protection of equations as well as process data. Si2 and SEMI have a strong complementary partnership supporting this area, as evidenced by the recent Si2-hosted DFM sessions at SEMICON West in July.
Low-power design methodologies have long been critical in the design of cell phones, MP3 players, and even microprocessors. Yet the handling of low-power information across tool flows has been highly fragmented and inconsistent. Recently, this issue has become a very hot interoperability topic. In August, Si2’s board of directors unanimously approved the formation of a Low-Power Coalition. The goal of this coalition is to deliver a consistent set of complementary standards for low-power design flows.
The Low-Power Coalition, which is quickly ramping up, aims to serve the industry as a unifying force for low-power formats, APIs, and libraries. It vows to ensure consistency and synergy with other key industry standards, such as OpenAccess, Open Modeling, and Liberty. The Low-Power Coalition will oversee technical efforts in partnership with the IEEE and Accellera while developing a roadmap for future work. An open workshop will be offered in early October to define the industry requirements and priorities for this critical topic (visit www.si2.org for free registration and a detailed agenda).
In May, Si2 and Accellera announced that the work of Accellera’s Open Kit Initiative (for custom-design PDKs) was being transferred into Si2. All acknowledged Si2 as a better home for this technology--especially the 67 “standard” symbols and attributes that were originally donated by Cadence. These symbols are used universally as building blocks for custom design. They’re related to a programmable-cell methodology called ‘Pcells,’ whereby a scripting language behind each symbol generates the detailed transistor-level instantiation based upon the parameters added to symbol attributes. Because OpenAccess is the ideal infrastructure to support custom design, a natural synergy exists with this symbol set.
Strategic partnerships, such as those noted with SEMI and Accellera, are an obvious way to fulfill our mission as we expand our scope. At this year’s DAC, for example, Si2 and the Spirit Consortium announced a partnership aimed at improving SoC design-flow productivity. By coordinating the technical roadmaps of OpenAccess, Open Modeling, and the IP-XACT standards, we can jointly develop an integrated architecture that creates additional value when using all of these standards.
Si2’s board of directors plays an important role in our success. This year, we congratulate two new companies that were elected to this prestigious group: Philips Semiconductor and Synopsys. These members join AMD, ARM, Cadence, IBM, Intel (chair), LSI Logic, and National Semiconductor in guiding overall strategic direction and business oversight as we continue to grow (see si2.org for names and bios).
Speaking of growth, it has been astounding--over 400% in three years! With approximately 110 corporate members (an 18-year record high)--including recent members like Texas Instruments, AWR, OEA International, Sequence Design, and STARC--our reach across the industry continues to grow along with our value proposition.
That value proposition is both clear and compelling: We deliver to the end result. By taking a holistic approach, Si2 recognizes that the value from our member’s investment comes only from successful industry adoption. Successful adoption requires many things: properly engaging the entire supply chain of stakeholders; taking the user’s perspective (that is decidedly flow-centric); architecting for consistency, scalability, and extensibility at the outset; addressing the full ecosystem of market and business complexities; and providing production-quality software that supports Si2 standards, up-to-date educational materials, and automation infrastructure to efficiently support distributed development and manage complex programs.
Si2 offers its members protection from antitrust-lawsuit "treble damages." In addition, it has established an IP protection policy so that corporations don’t risk unintended loss of their patent portfolios. With a dedicated, full-time staff of seasoned professionals, who are held accountable to performance metrics for timely project development and adoption success, Si2 has both a unique opportunity and responsibility to the semiconductor and EDA industries.
In a follow-up article to appear soon, we’ll explain more Si2 groups and activities that aren’t covered here. We also will provide greater depth behind our major activities and discuss future directions. Please visit www.si2.org and openeda.si2.org or feel free to contact my staff or myself to learn more. We’re here to help the industry move forward with efficient standards that unlock new potential growth as evidenced by our tagline: "Innovation through Collaboration!"
Steven E. Schulz is the President and CEO of Si2.