Magma Licenses ATPG to LogicVision
This just in: Magma has licensed its ATPG technology to LogicVision.
Today’s joint press release states that “LogicVision will develop, market and support ATPG and ATPG compression solutions based on advanced technologies developed by Magma”.
If you’ll recall, in October 2007, Magma announced Talus-ATPG, a power-aware ATPG tool to be integrated into the Magma implementation flow. A few months later (June last year). it ceased to exist. Web page vanished, and the party line was that it had been de-prioritized. In the interim, there were some resource shuffles, people, formerly Magma APTG folk, looking for work. Nothing left but a big question mark.
So here we are – Magma ATPG, the second coming? part deux? undead? Naturally, being a semi-curious kind of guy, I have questions:
- Is this ATPG technology the same that was shelved last year?
- Will it have power-aware capability as was promoted in the original Magma announcement?
- LogicVision already sells compression IP, and has ATPG technology. So what is the upside for them?
After a couple of e-mails, I confirmed with Steve Pateras, Marketing VP at LogicVision that this is indeed that technology, and LogicVision will be developing it. Says Pateras:
“It will not [initially] have the power-aware elements that Magma had originally announced. For the initial version we wanted to concentrate on bringing the multi-threaded capability to market [...] The plan is to migrate to the integrated and hence power-aware capabilities in future versions.”
So LogicVision fills out its DFT line, and strikes a deal for an additional distribution partner. Magma may get a chance to realize its dream to have compression and ATPG integrated into its flow. With the state of the economy and all the gloom and doom about the EDA industry, it’s probably a good move for both.
Well maybe when the going gets tough, the tough team up…
Stumble It!
Magma also announced 17% layoffs today. Any relationship between the two?
If you’re Magma and you’re going to kill the ATPG tool, might as well get a few bucks for it by licensing the technology to someone who’ll pay for it. I assume the people at Magma developing Talus-ATPG are either gone or going over to LogicVision.
Magma didn’t want to be left out – face it, everyone’s laying off… (wow, what a snarky answer to a troublesome situation, but that’s what came to me).
But you’re right, If you put enough into a tool to announce it to the world, but didn’t have the resources to actually bring it to market – yeah, it makes sense…
Interesting that LogicVision is buying into advanced ATPG technology.
I thought their marketting claim is that with Logic BIST, you do not need compression technology, or an advanced ATPG engine. I wonder how they are going to change this in the future.
Here’s a quote from Steve Pateras, which I did not include in the original post (maybe I should have):
“As you know ATPG makes more sense under certain circumstances (lower end designs, some legacy cores, etc) and so acts as a complement to our logic BIST solution.”
JMF
So, is Steve suggesting that the (majority) of designs are “lower end”? Care to explain that to the majority of semiconductor companies primarily or solely using ATPG?