EDA users demand Opteron support and get it

EDA IS an acronym for electrical design automation. EDA application software tools are used in the development of integrated circuits and systems. The hardware required to run that software has to be leading edge.

This story actually began at the end of last July. A single post on the DEEPCHIP message board started a chain of events that would eventually give EDA users what they wanted. An AMD Opteron option to run their EDA software.

The poster's problem was a simple one. Because the Opteron platform offered far superior price/performance - he gave an Itanium configuration that cost $13,500 more than an Opteron alternative - he naturally wanted to buy the cheaper solution.

But the hardware wasn't the problem, as he made clear in his post:

"What frustrates me, is that the EDA community in general is porting everything to the Intel Itanium 2 machines but not to the AMD Opteron. This doesn't make any sense to me. Mentor has officially announced that they have Calibre running on the Opteron. I have asked Synopsys when I can get an AMD Opteron port for PrimeTime and PhysOpt. (They do support VCS if you ask the right person.) They tell me the AMD Opteron is not officially being supported at this time."

So Synopsys was the spanner in the works. Without its co-operation, he would have to buy Itanium.

In response to the poster's concerns, someone who requested anonymity wrote a very enlightening reply:

"Have worked previously at Synopsys for many years, the answer to Maynard's question is obvious.

Why isn't Synopsys supporting Opteron?

1) It's too much work to port to both AMD and Intel right away. Synopsys wants to wait to see what the potential market is before porting to two platforms.

2) Intel is a HUGE customer of Synopsys. The part of the Synopsys sales force that services Intel is _very_ influential. And at Synopsys, the sales force rules. AMD is a Synopsys customer too, but not in the same category as Intel.

So the decision to go with Itanium is not based on engineering or cost analysis. It's 100% business. Anything you can do to make one of your biggest customers happy, you do."

So, if the above is true, we have another company that was willing to give its customers worse value because it was politically expedient to do so. This type of shenanigan is nothing new to the INQUIRER.

Another poster who also requested anonymity said:

"In general everyone on ESNUG should contact their EDA vendors for AMD-64 ports of relevant apps, as they will have found the Opteron to be a very compelling 32 bit EDA simulation platform."

Synopsys had apparently started porting to Opteron, but as the original poster said:

"I've also heard (grapevine, rumor mill, probably should be taken with a grain of salt) that some groups in Synopsys had actually started porting to the Opteron, but that the word came from Aart himself to stop it."

The IT press played its part when it exposed the story to the world. The EE Times ran a piece last September that drove the message home.

It is apparent that these EDA users made a whole heap of noise that must have been deafening to Synopsys, because the company has now announced AMD64 support.

Of course, Synopsys' press release spins a very different story.

So just remember, even with all the attributes that AMD64 brings to the table, if you want your vendor to give you an alternative choice, you will have to garner wide support and shout your demands from the rooftops. µ