Gary Smith’s Wallchart – DFT Tools
Gary Smith EDA Research comes out with their “Wallcharts” each year, listing all the EDA vendors, broken down by category. Understandably, It’s a wallchart, with lots of names on it, so there is no description of what each company does. So to appease my own curiosity, and as a DFT guy, I thought I’d take his DFT section (which appeared on the CAE EDA 2009 Wallchart) and add my own comments. Here we are (sorry for the long post):
Mentor: Sure, the biggest IC DFT vendor: Scan insertion, ATPG, compression, mBIST, BSD
Synopsys: Right up there with ‘em: Scan insertion, ATPG, compression, BSD
Cadence: Distant 3rd: Scan insertion, ATPG, compression, BSD
SynTest Technologies: Big in Asia – ATPG, BIST, compression, fault simulation.
Magma: Now you see ‘em, now you don’t ATPG tools
Genesys: Defunct? Website not updated for over 2 years.
Zuken: Products play in PCB space. Nothing specifically DFT-related
Acugen: Products to address automatic test generation for configurables: CPLDs, FPGAs.
Alpine: Test solutions and Psychometrics?
ASC (Alternative System Concepts): Got lucky and found a reference to this company in some ASIC technology trends paper from God knows when. These guys have one DFT tool – an IEEE 1149.1 boundary scan insertion tool.
Asset Intertech: Boundary scan, processor-controlled test and IBIST solutions.
Astek: This one’s a stretch. Astek makes board-level storage products. A couple of similarly-based test products as well, but DFT vendor? I don’t think so.
ATG Technology – Defunct, probably for 5-10 yrs. They used to do sequential ATPG.
Zuken-Redac – See Zuken, above.
Atrenta – RTL analysis tools, Spyglass-DFT, mBIST
Comit – A contract engineering services company, but does have an mBIST generation tool. Again, a stretch to call it a DFT tool vendor.
DeFacTo Technologies – Fairly new on the scene, RTL DFT insertion tools.
Flynn Systems – B-scan/JTAG test-debug products and services.
Giordano Automation – Acquired by VSE in 2006. VSE offers board-level diagnostics and system maintenance tools. Not DFT.
Incentia Design Systems – Offers STA, timing/design closure tools. Not DFT
Inovys: Acquired by Verigy in 2007, Inovys offered IC debug, F/A, yield analysis tools.
Intellitech: JTAG-based IP/tools for debug and test at IC/PCB/system level.
Intellx : a condom distributor. Really, Gary?? OK, maybe 12yrs ago, there was a company by that name. They had a booth at DAC 34 – no idea what they did.
Intusoft: Analog and mixed-signal design tools. Not DFT.
iROC Technologies: Design/test services, but concentrating on JEDEC standards that apply to soft error rates due to alpha particles and cosmic rays. DFT tools? Not.
Macraigor Systems: “Home of the Wiggler” JTAG-based processor debug hardware and software
Provis (Zycad): Defunct since sometime last century – Technology was acquired by Winterlogic (see below)
Simucad: Simulation and CAD – Not DFT. Been around a long time, was acquired by Silvaco in 2003 and re-spun out in 2006. Still not DFT.
Teseda (Deft): Desktop DFT testers and debug software. Rumored to be on the ropes a few weeks ago.
Winterlogic: Offers fault simulation with their product Z01X.
So, all-in-all, about 30 companies on this list. I’d say a little over half of them are really DFT tool vendors (and still in business). Oh well, the chart was free. You get what you pay for, right? Well, I’d like to offer up some more names for Mr. Smith, for free! Maybe they’ll make the 2010 Wallchart:
LogicVision: In the process of being acquired by Mentor – chiefly BIST products (mBIST lBIST, msBIST).
Virage Logic: One could argue that both LogicVision and Virage are IP companies, but still, I believe they both belong on the DFT list as much or more than many of those that GSEDA lists.
Corelis: Boundary scan and JTAG tools.
Goepel: Boundary scan and JTAG tools.
JTAG Technologies: Boundary scan and JTAG tools.
XJTAG: Boundary scan and JTAG tools. Wow – a lot of folks in this space… I need to do some reading to find the differentiation… later.
Temento: Board test, SoC validation, FPGA debug…
Q-Star Test: IDDQ test products, DFT/Test consulting
TSSI: Design-to-test solutions, vector translation and debug.
Source III: Vector translation tools.
Test Insight: Vector translation tools.
The last three, while not really Design-for-test tools, they are design-to-test tools, and used by design, test end/or DFT engineers in the course of their jobs.
What do you think? Did I miss someone else?
Stumble It!
Gary Smith needs to find clients, so every company that might be a DFT company goes on the wallchart. Then if they want to be a real DFT company, they can hire Gary to help them figure out how.
At least that’s how I would approach it.
Hi John:
Thanks for reading – so, are you saying that the wallcharts are trolling devices for clients, so it’s not real important that the entries accurately fall into the proper category?
Hmmm, so I guess I just performed a service of sorts to Mr. Smith…
JMF
JohnF, what a great post! I’m equally confused by his charts in the “CAE” space. Would you QA those, too? I hope that someone will. Maybe I will get up the nerve (and time) to take a swag at it.
Thanks JohnB! Looks like a bunch of John’s commenting on this post.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to QA the whole thing, not that I’d do a good job of it anyway – I’m sort of a one-trick DFT pony…
JMF
John thanks for the well researched post. We did a pass through the full CAE chart for 2008 (I know, we should have waited a few weeks and done it for 2009) and counted 250 firms, of which about 60 were defunct (some may have been acquired and the domain lapsed w/o forwarding). We need to go back and do 2009 based on your analysis above, we were not looking to see if categories were correct, just if they were still in business as an independent entity (and if they had a blog). I think the Xuropa folks had a list of over 600, but I am not sure how many of those were actually still in business either.
Good to see a list like this. Can you generate one for all the memory BIST providers? I don’t think Atrenta offers it (their tool ‘inserts’ BIST) and Virage might(?) offer MBIST standalone. I heard Synospys and Mentor claim to be the biggest vendors for test. Who’s right?
Thanks for your comments!
Other Test Guy (who are you? sometime send me an e-mail, so I know – unless for some reason it’s very important I don’t know – I won’t release it to public) But yes, I may be able to put a more comprehensive BIST list together – I am, BTW, working on a post about the Atrenta BIST insertion tool.
Sean: What do you think of John McGehee’s assertion that it’s just a troll for clients on GSEDA’s part? In that case, it would be better for it to be somewhat incomplete.
@John Ford: I think–borrowing from R.D. Laing’s Knots (see http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2008/07/15/quotes-on-communication/ )–that what John McGeeHee says about Gary Smith says more about John than it does about Gary. There are a lot of companies to track across a broad spectrum of niches. And firms are more concerned about getting on it then in letting him know that they have exited the niche (or the business). I think he would be open to your assistance and will take your critique as constructive criticism.
Clarification: when I wrote “we took a pass” earlier I meant an intern and myself at SKMurphy, not Gary and I.
Gary has been doing those charts since long before he got laid off from Gartner. Of course they are a bit of marketing collateral, but it doesn’t make them any less valuable.
Here’s the thing about what Gary does and what those charts say: Gary gets his information from the MARKET, not the companies. If the market says you are in that space, that’s where he puts you. It doesn’t matter where you think you should go.
Now if you feel you have been put into the wrong place, the most effective thing you can do is change how you present yourself to the market. If the market has it wrong it’s because that’s their impression of what they have heard from you, your competitors and what their compatriots are guessing about you.
I’ve had dozens of client that get pissed off about where Gary has placed them over the past two decades and they go and argue with him. He listens patiently, takes notes and then goes out to see if the market agrees with their interpretation. He then comes back at the next meeting and says, “Yeah, but this is what your customer says…”
Your customer may be wrong, but that’s not Gary’s problem. It’s your marketing problem. And if you don’t have an effective marketer doing the strategy and message, well, you’re screwed. Don’t argue with Gary. Fix your market impression. That’s why those charts are so valuable.
But Lou – I’m not one of those companies, I’m someone who might go out and buy a DFT tool. From my eye, the list isn’t even close. So who is this “MARKET”?? Unless I’m missing some marketing/PR meaning of the word, I AM the market.
So as a potential buyer, maybe I’ll go to this list, and start looking up these companies to see where my options are. I google IntellX, and get a bunch of hits for condom suppliers. For others I find nothing. What am I to think of this list?
So if the EDA vendors don’t agree w/ the list, and “market” doesn’t agree with the list – who else might it benefit?
As always, thanks for your comments!
JMF
@Lou There are several issues with the EDA landscape charts.
1. Firms will always want to appear as leaders in a new category or in as many categories as possible. This is what your comment addresses. But John Ford is really part of the market, so perhaps there are bandwidth issues that make it difficult for Gary to accurately cover the 400-600 firms offering some kind of EDA/ESL tool.
2. There firms are on the chart who are out of business. This is a problem that John Fort pointed out. This is a quality problem with the chart, not with a lack of marketing by EDA firms.
3. There are firms are not on the chart anywhere that are clearly offering EDA tools. This is another issue John Ford pointed out. This may be a marketing issue, it may be a bandwidth issue for Gary.
4. There are no URLs supplied and the names are sometimes quite ambiguous. This is a quality problem with the chart, not with a lack of marketing by EDA firms.
The reality is that a printed guide is obsolete, but it’s not clear what will replace it. The charts are something of a “public good.” ISD magazine used to publish buyers guides that were more detailed for a particular segment and complemented Gary’s efforts. I have been approached by several folks to develop on-line versions of the chart, but it’s not clear if there is a business model that supports:
+ better data quality (defunct firms removed)
+ more breadth (all relevant firms included)
+ more accurate taxonomy/categorization (definition of categories and assignment of firms to them).
What are some remedies:
1. Direct user contributed content: faces spam and other “gaming the system” problems but would play a role. Would probably improve data quality and breadth.
2. Direct EDA firm contributed content: similar to user contributed content but certainly could play a role. Would probably improve breadth.
3. Charge for the landscape, might increase effort allocated but may limit chart’s distribution/usefulness.
4. Publish it on-line as a database: would allow for more frequent updates and direct links to relevant site. May increase expense, certainly would unless print version was discontinued. Would probably improve data quality. Certainly if someone in Gary’s shop associated a URL with each firm (and took a quick look at the website) a lot of the zombies would be eliminated.
The assignment of categories/taxonomies might benefit from a “folksonomy” approach where additional tags could be added. The landscape does benefit from a coherent vision–compare it for example to the categories a firm is presented with when registered to present at DAC–but might benefit from a broader advisory board. Certainly John Ford’s contribution in this post is strong evidence for that. In the end it’s going to represent a negotiated solution that will continue to evolve fairly rapidly because of the nature of electronic system design and the new firms / new tools that are continually created to address it.
I am reminded of Henry Ford’s advice: “Don’t just find fault, suggest a remedy.” And that’s why I like what John did, he suggested some specific actionable improvements.
Wow – great to get comments – so much more fun than saying, “Is this thing on?”
Interestingly, after this post, I ran into another couple of other places with lists like this:
http://www.tmworld.com/article/CA6667541.html
… more concentrated on the actual test & measurement vendors (not so much DFT), but a good list nonetheless.
I’ll post the other one when I remember it… jeez, I’m getting old.
JMF