The acquisition by ARM of Prolific underscores, if there was still a necessity, the difficulties of bringing to manufacture designs targeting the 20 nm process. It has become clear that the cooperation between EDA tools suppliers and design houses must be practically air tight in order to succeed. Let's not forget that just a few weeks ago ARM had announced the successful tapeout of its Cortex-A15 MPCore achieved with the close collaboration of TSMC and Cadence. The experience certainly thought them something and I believe the Prolific acquisition is one of the results.

The complexity of the device architecture makes place and route extremely dependant on manufacturing requirements. Although PDK rules can provide a guide for many of the variations in design, they cannot address all of them. So EDA vendors have found themselves having to address special design situations that have not been envisioned in tools that are working well with the 28 nm or even the 22 nm processes.

In a way the industry is lucky to have to deal with the problems encountered in taking a design to manufacturing in the 20 nm node. This process is like the prophet advising the industry of the troubles to come at 14 nm. Semiconductor fabrication is about to make a jump that not only impacts tools, but also design methods and the way companies decide on future products.

Although leading edge technological know-how will still be a prerequisite to assure success of product development, financial and business considerations will be the most important ones. More and more often companies will have to question the financial viability of projects given their total product life and the existence of committed technical partners. A design problem that cannot be solved in house and requires the intervention of a third party may result in a failed project if the partner is incapable or unwilling to invest the required resources, or provide a timely solution.

Should such third party materially contribute to the success of the product, how would it be compensated? Do the present financial arrangements still work in the new environment? if not are changes that have been discussed in the past closer to reality?

As I stated in my article in the latest Assembling the Future newsletter, a much higher level of discipline will be required of designers to avoid down stream problems through well formed architecture.

The natural question then is: is the ARM acquisition of Prolific a unique event? I do not think so. I think there are a number of possible collaborations depending on the goals of the parties.

Years ago, for example, Peggy Aycinena speculated that TSMC would acquire one of the big three EDA vendors. This would certainly provide a tightly integrated development/manufacturing eco-system. But such an event could not be unique. The other large foundries will have to follow suite and the EDA industry would be changed forever.

Synopsys growing presence in the IP market could justify the acquisition of a core supplier, MIPS, for example, in order to guarantee manufacturability of very high end cores, now that ARM is set to open that market. After all, having purchased the analog portion of MIPS, why not finish the job?

And Cadence could purchase eSilicon, and solve two problems in one move. It would acquire methodology in design creation and development and also get Jack Harding back as its CEO freeing Lip-Bu Tan to pursue strategic investment opportunities on a full time basis.

What is clear is that the 20 nm process is not your father process anymore: we are entering a new and much different environment for IC design and manufacturing.