The Rise of Third Party Design and Verification Services

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Introduction
In today's economy, a company's very survival often depends on its ability to bring fully functioning products to market on time. This is especially true in the electronics industry, where a product's practical market window can now be measured in months instead of years! Couple this dilemma with the ongoing chronic shortage of qualified electrical engineers and there is a very undesirable situation or productivity gap for companies who design and produce electronic based products.

To combat this problem, many engineering organizations have begun to use third-party vendors, such as ASIC Alliance, who specialize in the design and verification of electronic systems. With its Time-to-Revenue Design Engineering Solutions(^SM), ASIC Alliance complements and extends the internal design groups of engineering organizations and helps them solve their most challenging design and verification problems within critical time-to-market deadlines.

The Emergence of Third-Party Services

In the late 1970s and early '80s, most electronic systems companies used internal staff, i.e., permanent full-time employees, in a vertically structured environment to design, develop, and manufacture their products. Sustaining these large organizations required companies to continually make enormous expenditures from their product development budgets, creating a financial drain. Despite this reality, however, management continued to believe that all aspects of the design and manufacturing process were essential and strategic, and thus must remain an internal component of the corporate organization.

As technology progressed, the costs required to manufacture complex electronic systems became prohibitive. These large cash outlays, especially for capital equipment, forced companies to turn to third-party contract manufacturing services to assemble and test their electronic systems. In the case of design engineering, it was not a financial issue, but the desire for more robust design tools running on standard hardware, that drove engineering organizations to migrate from expensive, proprietary CAD systems to commercial solutions supplied by EDA vendors.

Other factors that have influenced the migration of companies to commercial design systems include:

Increased difficulty of remaining competitive in semiconductor design, with the rapid emergency of new technologies.
The scarcity of engineering professionals, which prompted organizations to reconsider how to best leverage their existing employee expertise.
The requirement for flexibility in the use of resources, infrastructure, and financing.

These factors began to force increasing numbers of engineering organizations to eliminate non-critical functions, refocus on their core competencies, and fully leverage their design capabilities and capacity through the increased use of third-party engineering services.

In the late 1990's, the new trend of using outside vendors to support and supplement the product design process continued to grow. Today, very few companies design and develop their own custom processors and operating systems; instead, processor cores and operating systems are typically purchased from independent third-party vendors. If the trend continues, it is likely that the majority of systems companies will choose to abandon the entire ASIC design process and outsource it to third-party design houses.

Benefits of Using Third-Party Resources

Many successful engineering organizations have been able to adapt their design environments to take advantage of third-party tools and resources. As a result of this strategy, these companies can design and develop products that far exceed the systems they could produce in a traditional single-source organization.

Using third-party resources provides several advantages over developing designs in-house:

Increased capacity - Makes additional resources available to the organization that would otherwise be tied up in system design.
Enhanced expertise - Extends the technical knowledge and experience beyond that of the current organization.
Flexibility - Enables organizations to expand and contract their project teams as needed.

Making Third-Party Partnerships Work

A common rallying cry, "innovate or die," has been heard in recent years from many high-tech companies, with regard to the fast pace of development and technology. With careful thought and planning, the use of third-party resources can help companies continue their growth and innovation.

Identifying a Need
To remain innovative in a fiercely competitive market, it is essential that companies understand every facet of their development process, and carefully determine how they can use third-party vendors to bolster their production and revenues.

The organization's assessment should include a thorough evaluation of areas where third-party vendors can add value in the development cycle and set organizations apart from their competitors. It is important that companies identify areas of activity and production where time and resources are being spent without adding sufficient value. It is in these areas that organizations should consider outsourcing the activity.

Selecting the Right Vendor
To fully leverage and benefit from third-party engineering resources, organizations must first identify a vendor that matches their goals and priorities. Vendors should have a business model compatible with that of the organization, and must be able to meet the company's technical and staffing requirements.

Another factor critical to the success of a strategic third-party relationship is securing the support of management. This commitment must be complete and unwavering in order for the engagement to succeed. It is also essential that organizations treat third-party vendors as equal and strategic partners, rather than viewing them as "outside" consultants. The success of the partnership depends on clearly defined goals and objectives, good management following the defined objectives, and the use of a formal method of communication.

Using a Third-Party Vendor

Today, many engineering organizations are following this strategy and abandoning traditional ASIC design and verification, a change that allows them to concentrate their efforts on system-level design and software development. Many organizations, for example, have found that they can add more value to their products if they use Application Specific Standard Parts (ASSP) technology, "standard" processor cores, and third-party ASIC design services. In this model, the company's engineering organization creates the register transfer language (RTL) and then passes it to an independent group to verify its functionality and timing. This sourcing arrangement provides for the most optimal use of the company's design resources. The company's efforts can then be focused on the critical matters of system architecture, while issues such as ASIC design and verification can be outsourced to groups, such as ASIC Alliance, that specialize in this field.

Third-Party Resource Options

The table below illustrates the wide array of tasks, or areas of product development, for which organizations may want to hire third-party resources. The table also shows the type of third party or commercial source that has expertise in each area/task.

Hardware Tasks	Resource Options
Product architecture design	Domain specific consultants (ATM experts, etc.)
Microprocessor design	Commercial IP providers or ASIC vendor cores
Logic design	Independent consultants or third-party design house
Implementation	Independent consultants or RTL sign-off with ASIC vendor
Software Development Areas	Resource Options
Operating systems	Commercial operating systems
Firmware	Independent consultants or third-party design houses
Applications	Commercial applications programs
CAD Support Areas	Resource Options
Software	EDA vendor tools
Hardware	Commercial workstations or PCs
Support	EDA vendor support or third-party consultants
Manufacturing Tasks	Resource Options
Fabrication	ASIC or customer-owned tooling vendors
Assembly and Testing	Contract manufacturing organizations

ASIC Alliance's Solutions-Focused Approach

ASIC Alliance uses its solutions-focused approach as the foundation for delivery of design and verification services to organizations. This engagement model has been proven to provide ASIC Alliance customers with high-quality, predictable results.

Our approach is based on the following steps:

Create a partnership with our customers. To ensure the project's success, ASIC Alliance begins by making sure that team members understand customer goals in the areas of project vision, capabilities, and resources. We also check that there is a business match between the two organizations.
Discuss the customer's requirements. Through detailed discussions, we develop a deep understanding of our customer's project objectives, scope, schedule, and constraints.
Create a solutions proposal. ASIC Alliance creates a mutually agreed upon solutions proposal, which documents the management structure, methodology, tools, resources, and communication vehicles that meet the customer's requirements.
Develop a team-based approach. A team is put into place with the appropriate set of individuals whose skills match the project requirements. Using standardized methodology and training, our teams are able to provide higher quality and more uniform results than our competitors.
Execute and manage the plan. Our engineering teams and other ASIC Alliance support staff deliver results, according to the agreed upon plan.

ASIC Alliance's Time-to-Revenue Design Engineering Solutions(^SM)

Approaching design and verification problems from a solutions viewpoint, ASIC Alliance develops and delivers complete Time-to-Revenue Design Engineering Solutions to its customers. We have provided these solutions using this approach for the past three years, with excellent results.

For every design and verification project, ASIC Alliance provides exceptional experience and expertise. The benefits of using our services are described below:

We provide "on-demand" engineering experts who are extremely knowledgeable and experienced in the design and verification of ASICs, FPGAs, SoCs, and systems. This deployment model provides maximum flexibility and allows customers to increase their organization's design engineering capacity, as well as augment and expand their aggregate skills and expertise.
We quickly deploy experienced engineering personnel to help customers meet their tight project schedules. An experienced engineering staff can greatly lower an organization's overall risk and exposure during complex product development projects.
Our engineers are skilled in world-class communications, networking, and other computer domains. Working with ASIC Alliance gives you access to industry experts who have experience with some of the most sophisticated development and system technologies.
Working with ASIC Alliance allows you to better leverage your own personnel, as they work together with ASIC Alliance team members to meet the project's delivery schedule.
ASIC Alliance uses a system-centric design and verification methodology, plus supporting tools that it has developed to achieve optimal productivity within your organization. By using proven methodologies and an open software platform, project teams can become productive more quickly and deliver more consistent results.

Conclusions

With today's short time-to-market development cycles, rising costs, and shortage of technical personnel, many companies have turned to third-party resources for ASIC, FPGA, and SoC design and verification. Third-party vendors enable companies to focus on system design and production, better allocate their personnel, and more effectively meet their deadlines.

ASIC Alliance provides a full range of design and verification services to help companies meet their project goals and deadlines, as well as several tools that aid in the design and verification of electronic-based products. Project teams at ASIC Alliance are committed to meeting your goals, and are highly skilled in a wide range of complex multimedia, telecommunications, networking, and computer products. With the tools, teams, and commitment to get the job done, ASIC Alliance can provide engineering organizations with design and verification solutions to meet and exceed their goals in the next millennium.


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