Over the years, I have gone through a lot of baggage.  (I’m talking about luggage, not the emotional kind.)  I have become a loyal customer of Briggs & Riley, and I won’t buy any other brand of travel bags.  Why?  Because of their guarantee. 

Briggs & Riley will fix any bag they make for its lifetime, even if the airlines damage it!  Their guarantee also covers normal wear and tear – really!  I’ve sent my bags to them at least three times for repairs, so I can attest that they cheerfully honor their guarantee.

What I find even more remarkable than their guarantee is an underlying reason for why they offer it.  Obviously, it builds customer devotion, but it also provides an opportunity for Briggs & Riley engineers to continuously improve their products. 

When a broken bag comes in for repair, they analyze what happened and figure out how to prevent the same kind of damage from occurring in their next generation of bags.  Over time, their bags have become more and more durable, saving them repair costs and saving their customers from having to replace bags as frequently.

It’s a business model that seems to work well.  I wonder if there’s a way to apply it to standards.

EDA standards blog
The Standards Game
briggs & riley briggs and riley baggage luggage

It’s always exciting when a new standard activity launches.  There’s hope and expectations for a solution that will greatly help improve productivity for customers and suppliers alike.  I don’t have statistics on how many new standards are ultimately successful.  That would be some interesting data.

I do know that not every standard that starts becomes completed and adopted.  Completion - the official ratification by an organization or managing entity - is important, of course.  Yet it’s adoption that indicates the true measure of success for a standard.  The number of customers using it and the number of tools that support it are the best indicators of a viable standard.

There are dozens of EDA standards sitting on the shelf unused.  (Remember VHDL Waves?)  Resources consumed by these standards could certainly have been better spent. Working on a standard that isn’t going anywhere is a senseless waste.  If there is a well-adopted standard that is available to everyone, it is not effective to create a competing or overlapping one.

Hence, my 3^rd Commandment for Effective Standards is: Know when to stop.

No one likes to admit defeat, but shutting down an ineffective standards activity is only right.  If an already-accepted standard is made available to everyone, it’s important to stop working on an alternative. 

The EDA industry has done this at least three times in standards for libraries, constraint languages, and physical description languages. Let’s hope this commandment continues to be honored for many years to come.

EDA standards blog
The Standards Game

I’m very excited today because the Accellera standards organization has chosen to form a technical subcommittee to define a standard for verification interoperability.  I congratulate them on this decision. Verification engineers have been demanding a SystemVerilog-based verification standard for a while, and Accellera has taken an important step towards meeting the needs of the user community.

Users have asked for a standard methodology foundation for SystemVerilog to ensure maximum interoperability among verification components and easier collaboration between extended system-on-chip (SoC) verification teams.  A single Accellera-based standard can ultimately lower the cost of verification across the industry by propagating best practices, reducing re-implementation costs, speeding the creation of interoperable verification components, and improving overall verification productivity.  

Several of you (my customers) have already asked how to join and participate in the committee.  Until a more formal structure is in place, feel free to send me an email (karenb  @  synopsys  .  com) and I will pass on your request to the committee chair. 

As I’ve stated previously, my company is ready to donate our VMM technology towards the standardization effort.  When the Accellera committee solicits technology donations, we will immediately contribute ours.  Synopsys’ VMM is defined in the Verification Methodology Manual for SystemVerilog book published in 2005, and it has been used in hundreds of successful projects and described in dozens of user-authored technical papers.  Contributing VMM to Accellera demonstrates our support for customers’ need for a standard way of using SystemVerilog verification components.

There are other languages in use for verification, so the work of the Accellera committee could even provide the groundwork for possible interoperability solutions beyond SystemVerilog.  With this effort underway, there can be momentum towards industry coalescence around common verification standards.

EDA standards blog
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The IEEE P1801 working group is making its way toward the final steps in IEEE ratification of the standard: balloting.  Now is the time for companies and organizations to join the group of balloters.  The deadline for signing up to ballot is Thursday, May 1, 2008, 11:59 PM Eastern Time.

To join the ballot group, contact Penny Stanton, IEEE-SA Balloting Center Administrator, at: sa-ballot @ ieee . org. 

P1801 will be an entity-based ballot which means “one company - one vote”.  This process offers freedom from blatant vote-stacking and promotes industry-relevant standards.  If your company or organization is already a corporate member of the IEEE Standards Association, you can join the ballot group and ballot without paying a balloting fee.  If your company or organization does not want to join the IEEE-SA, you can still join the ballot group and ballot by paying a per-ballot fee. 

You can check to see if your company or organization is a corporate member or find out who is your corporate member representative by contacting Patti Sulzer (p . sulzer @ ieee . org).  An IEEE-SA Corporate Member list is also available at: http://standards.ieee.org/sa-mem/corpmemlist.html

If your organization is not an IEEE-SA Corporate Member, but wishes to participate in this ballot, follow these instructions to become a member: http://standards.ieee.org/sa-mem/join.html#corporate

If your organization prefers to pay the per-ballot fee, please contact Penny Stanton, IEEE-SA Balloting Center Administrator, at: sa-ballot @ ieee . org.

The P1801 standard is descriptively named “Standard for Design and Verification of Low Power
Integrated Circuits”, and it is also affectionately known as UPF 2.0.  UPF, I’m sure you recall, is the Unifed Power Format standard from Accellera which is enjoying broad vendor and user support. 

The IEEE summary description of the P1801 standard is:

This standard establishes a format used to define the low power design intent for electronic systems and electronic intellectual property. The format provides the ability to specify the supply network, switches, isolation, retention and other aspects relevant to power management of an electronic system. The standard defines the relationship between the low power design specification and the logic design specification captured via other formats (e.g., standard hardware description languages). The standard provides portability of low power design specifications that can be used with a variety of commercial products throughout an electronic system design, analysis, verification and implementation flow.

Once P1801 completes the balloting process and gains approval from IEEE-SA governance, the “P” will be dropped and it will become the official IEEE 1801 standard for low power design and verification of today’s complex low-power ICs.

EDA standards blog
Unified Power Format UPF CPF Accellera IEEE standards IEEE P1801 low power standard

Hello, Everyone!  I had been wondering why none of my posts had received any ratings since the end of last year.  One of my subscribers recently pointed out that nothing was happening upon mousing-over (is that a word?) the stars.  I did a little investigation and found that an option had been incorrectly set which pretty much disabled the rating system for my blog.

 The system is now fixed, and I’m looking forward to more ratings from my friends at Cadence. 

The 2008 Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) in San Jose, California was truly a record-setting event.  Over 2,000 customers from more than 250 companies gathered in Silicon Valley to learn and share their experiences in the challenging world of modern IC design.  Highlights from SNUG include recognition and congratulations to this year’s award-winners.  Proceedings - papers, presentations, and tutorials - are now available for download from the Synopsys website.

For me, SNUG 2008 was especially rewarding because the “Meet the Bloggers” booth gave me the opportunity to meet many talented engineers, discuss standards topics of interest, and welcome new readers to my blog.  The booth was busy all evening, and my fellow bloggers and I got a kick out of distributing our “MOO MiniCards” - a clever alternative to old-fashioned business cards.  (If you would like MOO MiniCards from Synopsys bloggers, let us know!)

Here I am at the SNUG “Meet the Bloggers” booth, meeting customers, winning a challenge (ask me for details), and passing out MOO MiniCards.

photos courtesy of Ron Ploof, Synopsys’ New Media Evangelist

It’s no surprise that the most popular topic customers talked with me about is their interest in a verification methodology standard. They are anxious for Accellera to start a working group so they can participate in the efforts to solve a real industry problem. As I’ve stated before, Synopsys is supportive of this effort, and we are ready to contribute.

Customers also asked me about Synopsys blogs, specifically if they can comment back and ask questions on our blogs. The answer is absolutely “Yes”! If you have any feedback or questions for me or any of Synopsys’ bloggers, please don’t be shy. Ask and comment away! There is real value in open blog dialog - it’s the essence of contemporary communication.

EDA standards blog
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Way back in the year 2000, Synopsys was the first to introduce open source standards to the EDA industry.  We decided to make our widely-adopted and very popular library format available for everyone, including all of our competitors, to use.  We upgraded its name from .lib to Liberty and launched a whole new model for EDA standardization. 

Today, there are a variety of open source EDA standards available which help make EDA tools interoperable in modern design flows. Open source has proven to be one of several viable means for creating standards in our industry.

However, “open source” does not necessarily mean “standard”.  Just because a format (or API or database) is open source, it will not automatically become an industry standard.  There is a fundamental requirement for open source to produce a real standard: Open Source = Standard iff there is a solid management scheme in place.  

What’s cool about open source is that anybody can take it, change it, and use it however they wish.  But, everyone doing their own thing with open source spells disaster for a standard.  Instead of the industry having one format, there can now be countless, uncoordinated variations.  Interoperability goes out the window if a format is simply made open source.

A well-thought-out management system must be at the heart of an open source standard.  If the open source standard has a goofy administration scheme or none at all, it will rapidly deteriorate into a free-for-all.  An experienced managing entity – which can be a person, company, or committee – is required to oversee the standard’s development and evolution.

Users of the open source standard must be willing to contribute their modifications and enhancements back to the managing entity.  The entity must have a fair and efficient method for determining which of the changes are accepted into the next version of the standard.  The version has to be validated and then redistributed to everyone.  

The next time you’re considering an open source standard, it’s a good idea to understand how it will be managed before installing it into your design system.

P.S. If my kids are reading this, yes, you guys, I do know how to spell “if”. 

EDA standards blog
open source open source standards liberty library format Synopsys TAP-in

Colleagues and friends have asked me how they can subscribe to my blog.  They want to know right away when I post a new commentary or bit of news.  Telling them to check on Thursday because that’s my blog day isn’t a very good answer.  It puts a burden on them to remember to check, and they might be disappointed if I miss a Thursday or post something special on a different day. 

My fellow blogger, Mike Demler who writes Analog Insights, has been asked the same thing.  He has posted very useful information on his blog about how to subscribe.  Thanks to Mike, you can follow his simple instructions to subscribe to my blog.  Be sure to subscribe to his blog, too, while you’re at it.

EDA standards blog

In a recent comment, John Blyler asked if I had any thoughts on company employees in standards-setting bodies.  The context is the Broadcom-Qualcomm lawsuit in which Broadcom alleged that a Qualcomm employee sat on a standards committee.  The whole story is interesting in and of itself - and it’s not finished yet. 

For me, the story hit home.  Participating in standards committees can have implications on your company’s patent portfolio.  This is the underlying reason for my “2nd Commandment for Effective Standards”. 

Commandment #2: Do Not Mix Patents and Standards

Before I go any further, I must solemnly swear: I Am Not A Lawyer and I Am Not Giving Anyone Legal Advice.  OK, now I am free to give my opinion. 

If there is a mortal sin in standards, mixing patent rights with standards is it.  It is cheating if you help develop a standard, don’t reveal that you have associated patents, and then assert your patent rights against others who use the standard.  Famous lawsuits have shown that companies cannot introduce patents into the standards arena and expect to retain rights to their patents. 

The term often used for patents that have standards implications is “essential patent”.  This means that in order to make use of the standard, the patent would necessarily be infringed upon.  If your company owns an essential patent and you participate in a related standards committee, you risk your company’s right to enforce the patent.  Effectively, your company can lose its intellectual property (IP) rights provided by the patent.

Patents that have to do with a company’s product which complies with a standard can be a different animal, though.  Product implementations that use the standard belong to the developer, and if the implementations are copied, the developer can be entitled to assert IP rights.

I have experienced occasions when EDA companies attempted to preserve their essential patent’s IP rights while contributing to a standard.  Complicated proposals to license and require cross-licensing were made, but these only caused confusion and derailed progress.  Worse, I witnessed instances of companies attempting to pressure or fool their competitors into relinquishing their IP rights.

On the positive side, I have known EDA companies to properly withdraw from standards committees to preserve their IP rights.  They have also made conscious decisions to forgo IP rights in favor of a much-needed standard. 

What should you do if you are participating on a standards committee and represent a company that has a patent portfolio?  Ask your company’s lawyer right away for direction.  Standards organizations usually have policies to address patents, and some won’t accept donations of patented technology.  Your lawyer can interpret these policies and help your company determine how it wants you to proceed.  At one end of the spectrum, your company might choose for you to not participate at all.  At the other end, your company may decide to contribute its essential patents to the standards efforts. 

The ideal situation in EDA is for all standards (which include formats, languages, databases, and APIs) to be free of IP and patent issues.  Either there are no essential patents to begin with, or essential patent owners are willing offer them up if they want to participate in standards creation.  Fortunately, the EDA industry hasn’t experienced patent-standard lawsuits to my knowledge, and we should strive to keep it so.

EDA standards blog
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The Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) event in San Jose, California, is approaching fast.  This year, we will have a special “Meet the Bloggers” booth during R&D Night from 5:00 p.m. - 8:15 p.m. on Monday, March 31st.  I would truly enjoy seeing you and your colleagues there.

If we’ve met before, you know that I’m friendly and love a good conversation.  If you haven’t met me yet, it would be my pleasure to greet you during the event.  I am interested in your opinions about my blog - especially the ones you wish you could post if you had an evil twin.

Don’t be a stranger - I’ll give you my autograph for free. 

See you at SNUG!

EDA standards blog
SNUG Synopsys Users Group