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Guide to Success
The cheapest, fastest and best way to finish your chip design may be to get somebody else to do it. A complex web of providers, both domestic and offshore, will be happy to help. But successfully outsourcing IC design takes careful planning, strong project management and a realistic set of expectations.
You can't just throw a specification or netlist "over the wall" to designers down the street, let alone in China or India, veterans say. With outsourcing, you are entering into a close partnership that will require ongoing interaction, supervision and quality control. "A partnership is like a marriage," said Pratul Shroff, CEO of design house elnfochips Ltd. "It takes time to understand each other, set expectations and get going."
In fact, the very notion of "handoff has become obsolete, said Richard Brossart, vice president of technology marketing at LSI Logic Corp. "We are engaged with customers very close to the beginning, and we work very closely with customers throughout the design process," he noted.
Choosing an outsourcing partner may be the hardest part of the process. Fabless chip designers have essentially been outsourcing physical design for years by passing netlists to ASIC vendors. That route is still open, but today, you can also work with an independent design services provider, either domestic or offshore. Other choices include "fabless ASIC" providers like Open Silicon and eSilicon, and large electronic design automation vendors such as Cadence Design Systems or Synopsys.
It all adds up to a complicated ecosystem with a tangled skein of relationships. Even integrated device manufacturers and ASIC vendors frequently use third-party design houses, and design services firms may subcontract with one another depending on areas of expertise. "There are many companies in the design services world," said Jim Gobes, CEO of design services provider IntrinsixCorp. (Westboro, Mass.). "Wemay compete one day and partner the next."
In a survey conducted last year by EE Times and Electronics Supply & Manufacturing, 40 percent of the 303 management respondents said they outsource IC design. Of these, 61 percent outsource physical design. And nearly one-third of respondents from large companies, which are more likely to outsource, described outsourcing as a "net liability."
In a subsequent EE Times/Deutsche Bank EDA user survey, 39 percent...