1. Chip
Design
and
Cloud
CompuAng:
a
Perfect
Storm
Olivier
Coudert
SiCAD
Inc.
1
May
30th,
2012

2. Agenda
u Chip
design
and
EDA
u Challenges
u Cloud:
pros
and
cons
Ø Burst
compuAng
Ø Business
models
Ø Piracy
thwarAng
Ø Security
2
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

3. Semiconductor
Industry
u What?
reg
[47:0]
wire
[47:0]
fract_denorm;
fract_div;
u Who?
-­‐-­‐
Top
10
reg
[30:0]
opa_r1;
Ø CPU
reg
[47:0]
fract_i2f;
Ø Intel
reg
opas_r1,
opas_r2;
Ø Memory
always
@(posedge
clk)
Ø Samsung
Ø Controller
//
Exponent
must
be
once
cycle
delayed
case(fpu_op_r2)
Ø TI
Ø DSP
0,1:
exp_r
<=
#1
opa_r1[30:23];
2,3:
exp_r
<=
#1
exp_mul;
Ø Toshiba
Ø FPGA
4:
exp_r
<=
#1
0;
5:
exp_r
<=
#1
exp_fasu;
endcase
Ø Renesas
u Where?
Ø Qualcomm
Ø Laptop,
server
Ø STM
Ø Smartphone
Ø Car
Ø Hynix
Ø TV,
DVD
Ø Micron
Tech.
Ø Medical
Ø Broadcom
Ø …
3
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

4. Semiconductor
Landscape
Provides
SW
and
IPs
Semi
market
size:
$350B
to
the
semi
industry.
$7.5B
market
IDM
EDA
Fabless
FPGA
Foundries
4
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

5. Chip
Design
Flow
Designer
HDL
Logic
20-­‐50
CPU
verificaAon
years
Synthesis
Timing
30-­‐100
CPU
verificaAon
years
Place
&
Route
Physical
10-­‐100
CPU
verificaAon
years
Foundry
GDSII
5
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

6. Chip
Design
Challenges
• Transistor
density
doubles
every
2
years
• Chip
performances
doubles
every
18
months
• Intel’s
10-­‐core
Xeon
Westmere-­‐EX
• 2.6B
transistors
6
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

7. Example:
Physical
VerificaAon
u Check
the
masks
meet
very
strict
geometric
rules
u What
do
you
need
to
verify
1cm2
overnight
(16h)?
Ø 40nm:
500
cores
(11
CPU
months)
Ø 28nm:
8000
cores
(14.6
CPU
years)
u Every
2
years:
Ø Transistor
density
2x
Ø Compute
power
2.5x
Ø Need
16x
more
compuAng
power
Ø Need
to
scale
up
the
farm
by
more
than
6x
7
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

8. CompuAng
Resource
Requirements
u Compute
resources
4-­‐6x
every
two
years
u Steady
regression
for
a
few
months
Ø Grid
made
of
a
few
100’s
cores
u Burst
compuAng
for
overnight
runs
Ø Grid/cluster
of
100-­‐10000
cores
u Data
transfer
Ø Design
data,
synthesis:
<1GB
Ø Place
and
route:
10-­‐100
GBs
Ø VerificaAon:
10GB
-­‐
1TB
8
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

9. Current
SW/HW
infrastructure
u SW
Ø 1-­‐3
years
TBL
Ø $5k-­‐$300k+
per
license
u HW
Ø Compute
farms
owned
by
semi
companies
u Mismatch
between
resources
and
peak
usage
Ø Semis
experience
resource
shortage
and
delays
Ø EDA
vendors
miss
business
opportuniAes
9
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

10. SW
Piracy
u How
to
pirate
EDA
SW
Ø Tamper
with
the
actual
binary
code
of
the
EDA
tool
to
bypass
any
licensing
check
(hard)
Ø Break
the
encrypAon
that
protects
the
key
generator
to
create
your
own
license
keys
(medium)
Ø Duplicate
the
hostID
of
the
server
(easy)
“30
to
40%
of
all
EDA
souware
use
is
via
pirated
licenses”
Dane
Collins,
CEO
of
AWR
Corp,
and
EDAC
board
member
10
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

11. EDA
=
SaaS
IDM
EDA
tools
Cloud
Fabless
provider
IPs
Foundry
• Customers
request
a
specific
environment
• HW,
SW,
and
IPs
are
automaAcally
provisioned
and
configured
in
the
cloud
11
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

12. Benefits
u For
semi
customers
Ø Scalable
infrastructure,
low
capital
Ø Peak
use
Ø Increased
producAvity
Ø IT
budget
management
u For
EDA
SW
&
IP
vendors
Ø Expand
geographic
reach
Ø Lower
cost
of
sales
and
support
Ø Peak
use
generates
new
revenues
12
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

13. Obstacles
and
Concerns
u Legal
Ø SLA
Ø Liability
in
case
of
data
loss
or
breach
Ø Geographical
locaAon
of
data
Ø Cloud
provider
origin
u MulA-­‐party
agreement
Ø Design
house,
foundry,
EDA
vendor,
cloud
provider
Ø Design
flow
involves
several
EDA
vendors
u Business
model
Ø SW
needs
a
pay-­‐as-­‐you-­‐go
model
Ø Risk
to
cannibalize
TBL’s
revenue
for
EDA
vendors
13
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

14. Obstacles
and
Concerns
u Technical
Ø Fast,
fault-­‐tolerant,
grid/cluster
provisioning
and
setup
Ø Flexible
configuraAon
(SaaS
and
IaaS)
Ø Volume
of
data
transfer
(up
to
few
TBs)
u Security
Ø Highly
sensiAve
data
(design,
SW,
and
IP)
Ø Customer
may
want
to
keep
its
SW
usage
confidenAal
14
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

15. Models
u Private
cloud
managed
by
EDA
vendor
Ø Aldec
(logic
simulaAon)
Ø Nimbic
(3D
simulaAon)
Ø Tabula
(FPGA
synthesis)
Ø Cadence
(reference
flow)
use
EDA
vendor
configure
15
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

16. Models
u Public
cloud
configured
by
EDA
vendor
Ø Synopsys
(logic
simulaAon
in
AWS)
EDA
vendor
configure
16
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

17. Models
u Cloud
plaxorm
configured
and
managed
by
a
3rd
party
Ø Xuropa
(SW
evaluaAon
in
AWS,
used
by
Synopsys,
Cadence,
and
Xilinx)
Ø Plunify
(FPGA
synthesis
in
AWS)
Ø SiCAD
EDA
vendor
Plaxorm
EDA
vendor
EDA
vendor
EDA
vendor
17
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

18. Why
Go
With
a
Plaxorm?
u For
semi
customers
Ø MulAple
vendor
tools
in
one
single
framework
Ø Vendor
agnosAc
Ø Cloud
agnosAc
Ø Can
keep
SW
usage
confidenAal
from
vendors
u For
EDA
vendors
Ø No
need
to
invest
in
their
own
cloud
IT
Ø Simpler
and
cost-­‐efficient
SW
deployment
Ø Keep
control
over
SW
licenses
Ø Use
the
plaxorm
as
a
broker
for
SW
sales
18
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

19. Plaxorm
View
EDA
Tools
User
Lic.
Tool
IPs
data
data
bins
h#ps,
ssh
Tool
Management
Design
ssh,
scp,
NX,
VNC
SiCAD
Plaxorm
ssh,
scp,
NX,
VNC
Semi
h#ps
•
•
HW/Tool
provisioning
Admin/user
policy
•
•
Access
permissions
Usage
reports
EDA
• Run
• Tool
uploads
Admin,
PM,
• User
status
h#ps
Engineer
• Budget
reports
Admin,
Sales
19
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

20. Plaxorm
Architecture
UI
Plaxorm
Infrastructure
ssh
NX
VNC
inst
cluster
IAM
Billing
Reports
Semi
FE
Vendor
FE
User
Lic.
Tool
data
data
bins
End-­‐user
browser
Users
&
projects
DB
Cloud
request
server
20
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

21. Plaxorm
Setup:
4-­‐steps
project
wizard
to
configure
HW/SW
resources
Cloud
provider
and
datacenter
selecAon
Pre-­‐packaged
SW+HW
21
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

22. Plaxorm
Budget
and
costs:
• Manage
usage
• Set
alerts
• Generate
reports
Manage
SW/HW/users
Run:
ssh,
VNC,
NX
22
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.

23. Conclusion
u Semiconductor
is
a
$350B
market
u Will
spend
$10B
this
year
in
SW
tools,
IPs,
and
IT
u Cloud-­‐enabled
chip
design
Ø Plaxorm
for
semi
and
EDA
companies
Ø Pay-­‐as-­‐you-­‐go
and/or
subscripAon
model
Ø Fast
provisioning
of
compute
grids/clusters
Ø Simple
SW
deployment
Ø Secured
data
handling
Ø Secured
license
management
Ø Secured
shared
access
to
data
for
support
and
services
Ø Data
and
SW
usage
kept
confidenAal
23
Cloud
Slam'12
SiCAD
Inc.