Fast Forward ESL

Well, it has been quite a while since my last post on this blog. But I today I wanted to share some interesting data points from Gary Smith’s latest “ESL Market Overview” report which came out a few weeks ago.

The first fact is that, in what Gary calls “one of the worst years in EDA history”, ESL outperformed the overall EDA market. While EDA declined by 6.6%, ESL “held its own with a negative 1.3% growth” still according to the report. This is quite telling and encouraging. When times are tough, EDA tool spending is typically focused on core, value-add, solutions. The fact that ESL did comparably better than EDA is an undisputable confirmation that ESL tools and flows have become “must-haves” for many. In this context, Catapult C consolidates its #1 position with a 50% market share in the High-Level Synthesis (HLS) market.

The second interesting information from the report is that the categories driving the overall architectural level ESL market are very clear: High-Level Synthesis, ESL Verification and Virtual Prototyping. In 2009, each of these categories individually represented markets of $25M or more, and their total far surpassed the other nine niche segments identified in the report. ESL might still be looking for a good, simple and solid definition, but does it really need one at this point? The report clearly shows what people do with ESL: High-Level Synthesis, ESL Verification and Virtual Prototyping.

These three disciplines are tightly related and dependant on each other. Can you build virtual prototypes without a verification methodology? What is there to verify that you don’t eventually plan to synthesize and implement? We are now seeing the beginning of a virtuous circle where, through interdependence, growth in one category fuels growth in the two other ones. This is the point where users look beyond point tools and seek additional value in complete flows – such as Mentor’s combination of Catapult C, Vista and Questa.

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