http://www.deepchip.com/items/snug07-07.html FIRST ENCOUNTER SLIPPING -- First I was seeing DC use slipping. Now FE is joining the how-the-mighty-have-fallen party, with Jupiter-XT moving up: 2005 - Cadence First Encounter: ############################ 71% Magma Blast Plan Pro: ###### 16% Synopsys Jupiter-XT: ##### 13% 2007 - Cadence First Encounter: #################### 49% Magma Blast Plan Pro: ####### 18% Synopsys Jupiter-XT: ############ 30% Internal tool: #### 10% "I don't do numbers for floorplanners any more, John, because all the vendors now give them away free with their tools," said Gary. "My data tracks sales, not licenses. What I have seen, like you, is a significant increase in customers developing their own in-house proprietary floorplanners." ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Using internal floor planner - [ An Anon Engineer ] My project uses none of these. - [ An Anon Engineer ] All available commercial floor-planners are crap, not worth the money even if they were free. Currently use in-house floor-plan tool, no plans to change. - [ An Anon Engineer ] I think our PnR guy has looked at Jupiter-Xt, but doubt we us it. - [ An Anon Engineer ] We're using in-house tools. - [ An Anon Engineer ] I used Cadence First Encounter in my last company and think it's a very good floorplanning tool, especially for hierarchical flows. I haven't used any of the other tools, current project doesn't need an advanced floorplanning tool => using ASTRO itself. - [ An Anon Engineer ] In isolation, if the only function to be done was floorplanning, Jupiter-XT would compare to Blast Plan Pro like Windows 3.1 would compare to Windows XP. Same fundamental function, much clunkier interface. As part of an Astro flow, Jupiter XT probably fits in well. As part of an IC Compiler flow, it is the worst pain in the neck to use and will cause many database issues. So as a fully integrated tool suite, rating ease of use, integration and functionaltiy (not QOR), Magma Plan + Fusion (4.x) is a Lexus compared to Jupiter & IC Compiler being a 3 wheeled motorcyle. Synopsys claims that in 2007.12 release they will fix this by haiving a complete IC Compiler solution and not needing Jupiter XT. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Jupiter-XT is a complete waste of time. Encounter starts out a waste of time, but has enough knobs to become useful, and stay that way even when the "weird stuff" that every project has finally hits. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Magma Blast PlanPro. It's a tool that comprehends true hierarchical processing. Very easy to perform early physical prototyping of incomplete designs. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Jupiter-XT gets the lion's share of the work at LSI. Our project uses that and the team plans to keep using that. Works pretty well from what I've heard, and works well in combination with ICC. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Jupiter is the worst of the Three. Encounter is the best and Planpro is second. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Magma Blast PlanPro. It let me known the design group placement relation. Bad on macro placement. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Magma Blast Plan. It's pretty good. never used the other two. - [ An Anon Engineer ] First Encounter. Not using enough of its capabilities. - Gautham Kamath of Cirrus Logic Using BlastPlanPro. I've been having trouble creating prototype designs that meet timing. My hand macro placements and manual partitioning seem to give the best results so far. - [ An Anon Engineer ] First Encounter. Floorplanning is still poor. - [ An Anon Engineer ] 1 - FE, 2 JXT, 3 Magma - all 3 used, all decent - [ An Anon Engineer ] We use Encounter. We are very happy users. - David Schwan of Sirenza Microdevices Cadence First Encounter. It's buggy and klunky, but gets the job done (most of the time). Too expensive to even think about switching. - Tom Mannos of Sandia National Laboratories Magma Blast Plan Pro is used. It is very fast and reliable. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Encounter for floorplanning. Better than Magma - better support versus constraints from PT/DC Easy to use. I have not tried the competition. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Looks like Jupiter-XT caught up with both Cadence FE and Magma BlastPlanPro - [ An Anon Engineer ] Cadence First Encounter is far more better than Jupiter-XT. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Previous project was on Jupiter-XT. For the next project, we are evaluating - [ An Anon Engineer ] top-level is done offshore. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Cadence First Encounter. Very good. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Jupiter-XT - John Stiles of Silicon Logic Engineering Not using any. In the past we used First Encounter and once you learned the scripting, it was excellent. Never done a real comparison with the other offerings. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Comparable between JXT and Magma Blast plan pro - JXT is far more mature though. - [ An Anon Engineer ] We use FE & Jupiter-XT. I think FE is better, but Jupiter-XT is a better fit to the flow. - [ An Anon Engineer ] FE.y Meet our current needs and like the CPF support. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Switching from Blast Plan to Jupiter. Corporate policy. - [ An Anon Engineer ] I was using Jupiter-XT for a long while but am currently using PlanPro. Planpro seems to be more user friendly than XT and they have put some thought into addressing the common hiccups in pad placement. But their inability to handle multiple instantiated modules (Magma doesn't like to call it inability, they offer a roundabout way of doing it) is far inferior. On large designs the prototype synthesis and placement numbers are way out of correlation with the block level BlastFusion implementation numbers. - Jay Pragasam of PLX Tech. JXT and FE are a technical tie, but FE wins on ease of use until ICC hierarchy matures. TCL support in Jupiter-XT is strong enough to make JXT very useful. Our current project uses JXT and it is excellent. - Jonathan Bahl of COT Consulting, Inc. Well, I liked Magma BlastPlanPro - when it didn't crash. But the predictions didn't really match final layout much, if at all. Given a choice here I'd use First Encounter. - [ An Anon Engineer ] First Encounter. Nice to have RTL Compiler bundled with it to squeeze out a bit extra. Otherwise, can't comment directly because I'm not the backend guy. But my backend guy has used Synopsys extensively and says that FE compares pretty favorably, with each having some advantages over the other, but I think overall he likes FE better now. - [ An Anon Engineer ] Jupiter-XT, the recommended Synopsys flow is more natural, but it does NOT help during a timing-driven design - [ An Anon Engineer ] Jupiter-XT is great; awaiting merge into IC Compiler. - [ An Anon Engineer ] --

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