1. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment Tom Guzowski / Bert Bradley

2. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 2 Author/Speaker Information  Name – Tom Guzowski  Affiliation/Company – IBM  Phone number – 802-769-7784  Email – guzowski@us.ibm.comguzowski@us.ibm.com  Name – Bert Bradley  Affiliation/Company – IBM  Phone number – 512-286-9012  Email – blbradle@us.ibm.comblbradle@us.ibm.com

3. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 3 Abstract The chip design environment needs to grow smarter and more intuitive in order to leverage the evolving capabilities of design automation tools / flows and the increasing complexity of technologies beyond 32 nm. This infrastructure intelligence embodies the creation of symbiotic relationships between the software developers applications and the designers exploitation of them. In these relationships, design teams are integral to the development and optimization of the infrastructure. This presentation outlines a set of infrastructure applications / processes that our Design and Technology infrastructure group, working in collaboration with chip design teams, has developed to address these demands for internal and customer projects. These include a cognitive designer interface, an intuitive methodology language/parser, a predictive, “on the fly” and historical analytics system, and an elastic model/tool suite environment. A high level overview of each item, use cases, and benefits is presented as well as how the design engineers were incorporated into their development.

4. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 4 Design – Designer – Infrastructure A Smarter Design Environment Increased design complexity More robust designer environment More robust designer environment Smarter Infrastructur e More hierarchical Higher performance Higher circuit count Increased function Reduced schedule Larger, distributed design teams Integrated applications Longer tool run times More complex flows Design dependent methodologies Reliance on empirical methods Common cockpit for all tool and methodology launching Adaptive and dynamic methodology management Predictive and real time feedback Design tune-able technology models and tools A smart infrastructure is the key to enhancing synergy between design and development teams.

5. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 5 Smarter Infrastructure Solutions TheGuide – common design workflow/application manager –Designer level views of key tool/flow controls and collateral –Comprehensive cockpit and dashboard (auto/manual execution) –Socket-ed interfaces to applications reduces design and model loading overhead –User adaptable and extendable Methscript Language / Parser - Adaptable and dynamic methodology – Designer friendly flow syntax – Dynamic flow update/reload – Fully transportable environment Design Profiling Analytics - Predictive and real time feedback – On-the-fly estimation of tool IT requirements and longer term resource planning – Automated design progress report – Design health check (wip) – Trend analysis to TAT estimation (wip) Design Specific Installs - Design tune-able technology model and tool kits – tools individually selectable to a specific version or revision – technology IP individually selectable to a specific version or revision A Smarter Design Environment User oriented languages, comprehensive analytics, and customizable libraries built into a standard cockpit all contribute to a smarter design environment.

6. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 6 TheGuide Infrastructure – an overview Data View Tools, Models, Methodologies, Scripts, IT, Data, Documentation Tool View Methodology View Configuration Manager TheGuide Tool Launcher Data Organizer Methodology Advisor Process Supervisor Upgrade Assistant Design Profiler Analytics View Process View Meta-data View UpdateView designers TheGuide re-factors data into user oriented views to allow users to focus on design level challenges.

7. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 7 TheGuide Infrastructure – common workflow environment Methodology Display, Status, and Control Methodology Step Functions Project Data Access IT Steering Control Data capture Design Data Organization Tool and Methodology Selection and Version Control Command Line Access Behind the scenes analytics The workflow manager’s visual integration of methodology, status, and process control.

8. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 8 Methscript Language – bridging the gap between tool developers and designers TheGuide Pre-released methodology XML Designers Methscript parser User developed or altered methscript with contained parms Hidden methodology XML Methodology display Methodology watch XML parser The methscript language has transformed the methodology development process. Floor-planning and physical implementation flows now have the design teams actively engaged in developing release-able methodologies.

9. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 9 Methscript – a designer oriented language  Syntax-lite, compact language (positional parameters and simple delimiters)  Simple defaults (e.g. methodology step name used as default applications script)  Short cuts (e.g., one methscript line can generate N-way parallel flow for all modules)  Many single line scope commands  “continue on error” parsing  Legacy XML methodology interface  File validity checking at parse time  All subflows could be contained in one methscript file, resulting in multiple XML files  Back annotation of scripts integrated into Guide user interface  Historical runtime data retained in Guide session for use in next run START_PROC proc_name START_SEQUENTIAL START_DEFAULTS tool_name script_variable value … script_variable value END_DEFAULTS step_name[ ::script_name] tool_name [ script_variable=value... script_variable=value] [ // tcl_variable=value... tcl_variable=value ] … END START_PARALLEL START ALTERNATIVE step … END step … END END_PROC USE proc_name “macro1 macro2 … macroN” Coding Features PROCEDURE DEFINITION STEP GROUPING TOOL DEFAULTS STEP PROCEDURE CALL LOOP

10. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 10 Methscript – display for methscript and XML input methscriptXML

11. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 11 Design Profiling - an overview … … … TheGuide (internal and external) design methodologies Design Profiling … Standardized Web and Unix based Analysis and Reports database User access to database project temporal comput er timing physical wiring clocking checking design result images (wip) …

12. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 12 Design Profiling – smart feedback Analysis and Reports Design Health Check Project Management Tool and Technology Usage Monitoring Milestone Prediction IT Forecasting … TheGuide Design Profiling Design Team Execution and Result Data Tool/Flow controls Management Team Business Analysis and Reports Technical Analysis and Reports IT and run time data

13. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 13 Design Profiling - smart feedback - design health check example Automatic collection, analysis, and reporting saves each designer ~ 4 hours per week managing their results and summarizing for team lead/management.

14. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 14 Design Profiling - smart feedback – milestone prediction example Design teams use design profiling to extrapolate how fast a design will close for next milestone. Visualization reports can help identify the spots where designers are iterating.

15. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 15 Design Profiling - smart feedback – IT forecasting example Historical project analysis in Design Profiling helps plan for future workload. (host data, cpu time, requested/actual memory usage tracked for process tree by watcher process)

16. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 16 Design Specific Installs – Guide project data to tool/tech interface Toolkit Release / Version – Maintenance – Patch Tool kits M2.P4M2.P3M2.P0 M1.P7M1.P6M1.P0 TheGuide (project data) Tools Model kits Library Release – IP Version – IP Revision IP … … Rel 4Rel 1 … … … links Rel 18.1 Tools and models evolve frequently to keep pace with technology enhancements and design requirements. Smart installs make all updates available to designers – links are exploited to save space. Every tool and model kit IP update is uniquely selectable from TheGuide

17. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 17 Design Specific Installs – typical usage models : latest, frozen, pliable Toolkit Release / Version – Maintenance – Patch Tool kits M2.P4M2.P3M2.P0 M1.P7M1.P6M1.P0 Tools Model kits Library Release – IP Version – IP Revision IP … … … … … links Rel 18.1 TheGuide (project data) Rel 4Rel 1 Most designers select most recent updates in construction phases - TheGuide defaults to this model. Latest Frozen Pliable

18. © 2013 IBM Corporation A Smarter Design Environment 18 Summary / Conclusions / Challenges. Designs and technologies continue to grow in complexity. Complexity drives new capabilities in design tools and methodologies New tool functionality and methodology enhancements require more effective collaboration between developers and designers. Increased designer / developer collaboration promotes a smarter infrastructure through more adaptable environments, intuitive interfaces, focused feedback, and expedient delivery Increased design complexity More robust designer environment More robust designer environment Smarter Infrastructur e TheGuide Workflow Manager Methscript Language Design Profiling Analytics Design Specific Tool/Model Kits Challenges: Designer inertia / acceptance Enhancement requests Conventions and standards