Interra launches SpyGlass RTL rule checker

Richard Goering - February 07, 2000

Interra launches SpyGlass RTL rule checker

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Interra Inc., best known as a provider of analyzers and compilers to other EDA
vendors, is entering the end-user market with SpyGlass, a register-transfer-level (RTL) rule checker.
To be announced this week, SpyGlass goes well beyond "lint" checking to look for design rule
violations in such areas as reusability, verification and test.

While a variety of lint and RTL code analysis tools are available, SpyGlass claims to be distinctive
because it is programmable and extensible. The product uses "rule decks" that are separate from the
applications software, making it possible to add new rules without modifying the rule checker. Users
can create new rule decks in C or Perl.

"Customers want to capture their design-and-reuse policies," said Bernard Murphy, vice president of
advanced products at Interra. "It raises the bar for engineers who aren't so experienced, or [who]
may be new at the company. And where the bar gets raised, productivity gets raised."

Murphy said SpyGlass uses software from the EDA Objects line of building blocks that Interra has
marketed to other EDA vendors. For example, SpyGlass uses the EDA Objects language analyzer to
read in VHDL or Verilog, and uses the EDA Objects RTL compiler to analyze problems like latch
inferencing or combinational loops. Interra added a rule-checking engine to create SpyGlass.
Before synthesis

The new product is intended for use before synthesis and simulation. It can read behavioral VHDL or
Verilog code, but most of its checks are at the register-transfer level. "It can quickly trap problems
that might take hours to find in a downstream tool," said Murphy. SpyGlass can also check gate-level
code.

The output, Murphy said, is "extremely programmable," and can include simple listings of violations
and graphical reports. In addition to reporting violations, SpyGlass can report a reusability "score"
based on the OpenMore program created by Synopsys Inc. and Mentor Graphics Corp.

SpyGlass comes with standard rule decks that include lint syntax checking, design-for-test rules and
reusability rules drawn from the Reuse Methodology Manual co-authored by engineers at Synopsys
and Mentor. Most of these checks are derived from section five of that manual, which includes RTL
coding rules. Users can turn individual rules on or off.

To add a rule, users can customize existing rules or write new rule decks in C or Perl. These can
include extremely complex, company-specific rules, Murphy noted, including highly proprietary rules
that customers don't want Interra to know about. For example, he said, one customer penned a rule
saying that if a designer creates an SR latch, he or she must include a comment stating why the
latch was included.

Run rate

SpyGlass claims to run very quickly and to process up to a million checks per second. In one example
cited by Murphy, the program processed 150 rules for 50,000 lines of RTL code in four minutes.
However, he acknowledged, the program slows down as more rules are added, and some rules run
much more slowly than others.

Motorola is a SpyGlass customer, and has adopted the tool to enforce its in-house design policies,
said Wolfgang Eisenmann, manager of intellectual property at Motorola's Semiconductor Products
Sector's system-on-chip design technology center.

SpyGlass supports file formats allowing integration with tools from Cadence, Synopsys, Avanti and
Mentor. The product includes a Perl 5.0 interpreter, supports both Verilog and VHDL, and runs on
Sun/Solaris 2.5 and 2.6, HP-UX 10.2 and Windows NT platforms.

The SpyGlass offering consists of an RTL Rule Checker, which starts at $25,000, and an RTL Rule
Builder, which starts at $50,000. Interra has created a Web site for the products.

Interra markets its EDA Objects product line to vendors such as Synopsys, Ikos, Magma and
Viewlogic. Systems companies that use EDA Objects in their internal CAD departments include
Compaq, C-Cube and VLSI Technology.