pioneering the future of verification - ibm research |...
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Pioneering the Future of Verification A Spiral of Technological and Business Innovation
Kathryn Kranen President & CEO, Jasper Design Automation Haifa Verification Conference – December 6, 2011
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Kathryn Kranen’s Bio
Electrical engineer, ancient ASIC designer • Early user of gate-level simulation
20+ years in the Electronic Design Automation industry • Vice-chairperson of EDA Consortium board of directors
• 2005 recipient of the prestigious “Marie R. Pistilli Women in Electronic Design Automation Achievement Award”
• 2009 “EE Times’ Top 10 Women in Microelectronics”
Multiple patents filed/pending in formal verification domain
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Serial Entrepreneur in Verification Domain
Formerly Vice President NA Sales - Quickturn Systems • Pioneered the hardware emulation market
Formerly President & CEO - Verisity Design, Inc. • Pioneered constrained-random simulation / testbench
automation market
Currently President & CEO - Jasper Design Automation • Profitable, private EDA company leading the formal property
verification domain
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Agenda
Perspectives on the EDA industry
An attempt to demystify the question: Why do some EDA innovations achieve mainstream adoption, while other worthy technologies fizzle?
Ideas on future design/verification innovations
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Perspectives on the EDA Industry
Rewards: • Huge impact on the world, by enabling all electronic devices • Extremely tight collaboration with semiconductor companies • Wide variety of deep technology challenges • Intelligent global workforce with a strong sense of community
Challenges: • Small (<$5B), slow-growing industry • Many complicated pieces to the value chain • Historic EDA business models discourage innovation • Not too popular with venture capitalists
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Success Rate of EDA Startups is Low
It is estimated that only 1 out of 30 to 40 EDA startups achieves a desirable liquidity event – meaning an IPO or high-value acquisition (i.e. employees make money)
How can we predict which ones will succeed?
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Successful Execution Requires a Spiral of Technological and Business Innovation
Technological innovations must move in lockstep with business innovations for successful market adoption Each “step” of industrial usage generates revenue - and real-world feedback - to fuel the next set of innovations By mastering this execution model, organizations can bring about market revolutions – incrementally!
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Technological/Business Innovation Spiral
Practical Considerations:
Setting the right goals (and adjusting them)
Conquering market adoption hurdles
Tuning the business model to fit the technology
A company’s execution model evolves as it matures. Context for this presentation is early years (pre-profit).
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Setting The Right Goals And Continuously Refining Them
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Classical Business Plan – EDA Style
The Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Value Propositions . . . . .
Market Size. . . . . . . . . . .
Technology Feasibility . .
Barriers to Competition. .
Funding Needs. . . . . . . .
Potential market is huge, but do you have the skills to penetrate and grow that market?
How valuable will version 1.0 be? Will anyone be willing to use it?... Pay for it?
Which of these are also barriers to YOU? Have you considered adoption barriers?
Evolutionary? Complementary? Disruptive? My favorite: first complement, then disrupt.
You will probably need more than you think. Plan on several iterations of “market learning”.
And what flow integration will be required before a real customer will use the solution?
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Be Realistic About Best Case Outcome
FEATURE ? . . . . . . . . . .
PRODUCT ? . . . . . . . . . .
COMPANY ? . . . . . . . . . .
ENTIRE DOMAIN? . . . . .
Would this capability be more effective if it were embedded in an existing product?
Does it solve a big enough problem to justify a separate buying decision by customers? Are boundaries well-defined?
Can you potentially generate $50M to $100M from this technology?
Does the core technology have many product-worthy (adjacent) applications? Can the domain support multiple companies?
Business strategies differ dramatically by target outcome
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Example: Early Jasper
Formal Property Verifica1on Protocol cer)fica)on End-‐to-‐end packet integrity Asynchronous clocking effects Asser)on-‐based verifica)on
Started Here
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RTL Development Designer-‐based verifica)on w/o testbench Design trade-‐off analysis X-‐propaga)on detec)on and debug Power management verifica)on
Formal Property Verifica1on Protocol cer)fica)on End-‐to-‐end packet integrity Asynchronous clocking effects Asser)on-‐based verifica)on
SoC Integra1on Automated register verifica)on Glitch detec)on Mul)-‐cycle path verifica)on Chip-‐level connec)vity
Architecture Valida1on Executable spec Absence of deadlock Cache coherency
Property Synthesis Automated asser)on genera)on Iden)fica)on of coverage holes Inference and synthesis of func)onal proper)es
from RTL and simula)on waveforms
Post-‐Silicon Debug Failure signature matching Root cause isola)on Candidate cause elimina)on Valida)on of fixes before re-‐spin
Interac1ve Debug Modify/create proper)es on the fly to explore design
behavior
Increased Throughput U)lize mul)ple proof
engines on parallel compute resources
Wider Deployment Proliferate across
engineering teams with unique adop)on model
Higher Capacity Verify complex 100M gate
designs
Jasper Today: Solutions to an Array of System-on-chip Development Challenges
Verifica1on IP Cer)fica)on of AMBA 4/ACE checkers Popular standard protocols Configurable, illustra)ve, op)mized for formal
Started Here
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Find the Right Place in the Value Chain
Aim your product at a “Modular Decoupling Point” in the EDA value chain • Too low: product won’t integrate into customer environment • Too high: customers won’t pay for excess value • Source: Christensen, et. al: "Maximizing Returns from Research”
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Value vs. Effort – Pick the Right Strategy
The basis of most Business Plans ;)
High Value / Low Effort
Nobody wants to be here!
The ultimate solution will take some time. What will be your go-to-market strategy?
Effort
Value
• More likely relevant • Get paid for value • Gain experience
Low Value / High Effort Low Value / Low Effort
High Value / High Effort
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Unsolved Problems
Methodology
Services
Bull’s Eye Strategy
Tool Service methods, once documented, become methodology steps
Predictable methodology steps are eventually implemented as tool features
Exposure to real-world challenges yields methods to overcome them
Aim at bigger problems than current standalone tools can address
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And bigger unsolved problems!
Tool Evolution Brings Scalability
Unsolved Problems
Services Methodology
Tool
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Setting the Price for Early Solutions
Considerations:
Early adopters debug and work around product issues
If you get in the door, you can grow the business later
A lower price means more potential customers
Top semiconductor “logos” help attract VCs, others
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Early On, Hold Out for Maximum Dollars
Generates income to (partially) fund operations while you are dedicating your precious resources to that customer
Brings accountability by testing your value propositions
Prevents “false validation” associated with cheap logos
Avoids having to raise the price later (very difficult)
You need the customer to have lots of skin in the game • The road to success will be hard, and you don’t want it to be easy
for your customer to abandon the effort
Then do whatever it takes to make early customers successful
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Target the Right Level of Automation
EDA innovators often aim at “push-button” automation
When full automation falls short, there’s no backup plan • Customers deem the solution too risky for production projects • Solution are relegated to less complex but much less valuable
applications (refer to Value/Effort slide)
An interactive solution is often a better alternative • Can potentially solve bigger problems sooner (with user’s help) • The user’s participation mitigates risk • Empowered users become fanatics who champion your cause!
Usability ≠ GUI … often involves very deep technology
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OVERCOMING MARKET ADOPTION HURDLES
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Typical Market Adoption Hurdles
Resistance to change
Flow integration issues
Risk of inserting the new solution
Concerns over startup’s staying power
Poor availability of user resources
Try to think from the potential customer’s perspective
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Find a Compelling Cause for Change
Most engineers have resigned themselves to the box they’re living in.
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Organizational vs. Personal ROI
Organizational ROI benefits a company/project team • Justifies the purchase price • Value must be visible to the executive holding the budget
– Think: “Observability at the outputs”
Personal ROI benefits the individual user • Adoption is much easier when ultra-busy potential users actually
WANT to use the solution • Top-down mandates are very risky
Find a way to address both types of ROI
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Identify All Essential Ingredients Understand downstream factors that could prohibit use
• Language, models, interfaces, user availability, training
Make a plan up front to address them • Parallel process to minimize time-to-market • Partner with others if necessary
Even one critical missing piece can render a breakthrough “core technology” useless
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Verisity Example (1996-1999)
Context: Unprofitable Israeli startup selling a testbench automation tool based on a propriety new language, ‘e’
Hurdles We Overcame: • The language barrier, obviously • Blank Page Syndrome (ramp-up problem) • Single Copy Monster (business model issue) • Lack of object-oriented programmers on RTL teams • Availability of models for standard protocols • Shortage of skilled users
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Find the Right Early Subset of the Market
Tendency is to strike out developing a general-purpose solution, to address a huge market opportunity • Getting the universal solution right can take too long, delay
market learning cycles, burn funds, and increase risk of failure
A better approach: • Don’t worry about market size while severely channel-limited • Find a segment you can address with early product • Sharpen your value propositions for that set of customers • Generate revenue to fund the next phase of innovations • Iterate the technological/business spiral with new segments until
the universal solution is realized!
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Quickturn Example: Early 1990s Context: Business plan called for an ASIC Emulator
capable of emulating any arbitrary design. • FPGA place & route issues caused race conditions in designs
with more than 2 clocks • End result: our ASIC Emulator couldn’t handle any ASICs!
Redirected the team to go after x86 processors (single clock designs at the time) • Closed a ~$5M partnership deal with Intel • Built a multi-box system to handle capacity • Grew the processor emulation segment to $100M in 3 years! • Delivered the universal solution for ASIC Emulation, years later
Fine-tuning the Business Model
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Sales Channel Synergy
A product must “fit” its sales and support team and be scalable to the target market
Two kinds of EDA products: High Reach and High Touch
High Reach Product High Touch Product Sales channel No special skills, maybe
sold over the internet Consultative sale, requiring special skills
Support required Little Customer-specific methodology
Capability Lower Higher Price Lower Higher Mixed into FAM deal OK Not a good fit
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Creating a Repeatable Sales Process
Requires lots of experimentation to “crack the code”
Sales processes vary dramatically – even among functional verification solutions
Example questions: • Are evaluations needed? What evaluation scope? • When should you quote price – early or late? • Top-down or bottom-up sale? • Price agreement before evaluation or after? • Sell through central CAD or through individual projects? • Sell early or late in customer’s project cycle? • What style of salesperson is best?
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Monetization of Resources
A company has limited resources available to generate as much revenue as possible
Only a few ways to increase software revenue: • Increase the license consumption per user (or batch process) • Increase the number of users per project • Increase the number of projects per company • Increase the number of companies • Charge more for the licenses you are selling
For each employee, ask: • Which revenue parameter is their work impacting? • Is there something better they could be doing?
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Changed Business Model in 2008
Example: Jasper Business Model Innovation
Great business today • >60% annual revenue growth
• 97% renewal rate
• >50% average expansion per customer
• Profitable and self-sustaining
But that wasn’t always the case • Had to learn how to compete with almost-free big vendor tools
• Found a way to reliably sell high-value, methodology-intensive solutions
– Leveraging our agility to rapidly evolve the software
• Key business innovation was “Applications Engineer-based Margin Model”
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AE Margin-Based Business Model
$
1. Identify Customer’s Top Problems; Set Deployment Goals (Applications and Sites)
3. Size Deal Using AE Margin Calculation (# AE-Mos. * Revenue/AE-mo.) 4. Deliver as Time-Based Software Licenses Plus Allocated Methodology Support
2. Assess AE & License Requirements
Prio
rities
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Resource Investment Fits Market Opportunity
R&D
AE
Sales
Marketing
G&A
AE activities must generate sufficient revenue to fund the company’s operations
High level of R&D investment enables continuous delivery of breakthrough solutions
Sales, marketing, and administrative headcount is kept to a minimum
Future Design/Verification Opportunities
A Few Examples That Require Technological/Business Innovation Spiral
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Design and Debug Breakthroughs
Design Verifiability Advisor • Flags hard-to-verify design characteristics as the RTL/HLM is
coded, and suggests alternatives or accommodations
“Google-desktop” for RTL/HLM design • Pre–caching and indexing information from simulation and/or
static analysis to allow "searchable" on-the-fly scenarios • Challenge: Automatic and compact indexing of “pivot” data
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Simulation Breakthroughs
“Self-aware” simulation • Profiles tests and eliminates wasted cycles • Reduces the number of simulator licenses, but justifies 2x-3x
price through savings on machines, power, and data centers
Direct controllability on top of existing simulation runs, for “what-if” analysis and coverage
High scale symbolic execution using existing simulation and testbench collateral
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System-Level Modeling and Verification
System = more HW plus SW plus integration • H/W: more integrated content, greater diversity
– analog + RF + logic + uP + DSP + memory
• S/W: embedded, OS, drivers, libraries, and applications
SW/HW Constraints for Concurrent Development • Software level: adherence to specified hardware constraints • Hardware design: adherence to legacy software constraints
SW and HW security verification
Power event modeling, measurement and verification in the context of hardware plus software
Thank You