Pioneering the Future of Verification - IBM Research | IBM

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

| © 2011, Jasper Design Automation | Confidential Page 2 | © 2011, Jasper Design Automation | Confidential

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


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


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


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


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?


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!


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).

| © 2011, Jasper Design Automation | Confidential

Setting The Right Goals And Continuously Refining Them


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?


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


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


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


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”


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


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


And bigger unsolved problems!

Tool Evolution Brings Scalability

Unsolved Problems

Services Methodology

Tool


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


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


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


OVERCOMING MARKET ADOPTION HURDLES


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


Find a Compelling Cause for Change

Most engineers have resigned themselves to the box they’re living in.


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


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


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


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!


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


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


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?


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”


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


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


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


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


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

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