PLACES TO GO, PEOPLE TO SEE
Many companies and online resources are available to aid in the migration process,
or actually do it for you. When working with a third party, be sure to get in
explicit writing what will be included as part of the overall NRE, as well as
any potential "gotchas."
A statement of work quote may include 95% fault coverage, so find out how much
it will cost to increase the fault coverage later if you require that flexibility.
Also, after the third party reviews your project, be sure to find out what functionality
will be difficult to migrate (like phase-lock and delay-lock loop elements)
and what could cause project delays.
Find out the "rules of engagement" to understand what will be expected of you
and when. And, have a dedicated person who is willing and able to resolve issues
quickly. Third-party companies will typically take what they can get with respect
to constraint, pinout, and report files.
Synplicity's Certify helps in the multiple FPGA-to-ASIC conversion process.
The main benefit of using Certify is its RTL partitioning capability, known
as Quick Partitioning Technology (QPT). QPT is an automated partitioning tool
that targets both experienced practitioners and rookies. Synplicity also offers
Identify Pro, which provides a connection between FPGA prototypes and simulation
software for analyzing and debugging RTL.
In addition, Synplicity recently acquired Swedish company Hardi, which sells
ASIC prototyping mother/daughterboards that can be connected like Legos to meet
functionality needs. The company wrote up a nice white paper on using multiple
FPGAs to prototype a complex ASIC: "ASIC Prototyping Using Off-the-Shelf FPGA
Boards: How to Save Months of Verification Time and Tens of Thousands of Dollars."
The Dini Group, a California-based company, sells ASIC prototyping boards capable
of emulating up to 24 million ASIC gates. Meanwhile, ChipX offers migration
services capable of converting FPGA RTL code or netlists to structured ASICs,
embedded arrays, and standard-cell ASICs. Also, eASIC Corp. offers migration
to its structured ASIC devices as well.