This is the 8th installment in my series, “The 10 Commandments for Effective Standards”. If you’ve missed the previous entries, have no fear. There’s no god of standards to whom you’ll have to pay penance. And if you’re interested, the first 7 commandments are in the archives.

Commandment #8: Recognize there is more than one way to a standard

In the early days of the electronic design automation industry, EDA standards were primarily produced by the IEEE’s Design Automation Standards Committee (DASC) or by the Electronics Industry Association. These formal standards organizations sponsored the ratification of two of EDA’s most well-known standards, VHDL and EDIF, respectively.

Over time, however, the process of creating EDA standards became protracted and inefficient. As technology advancements sped up, EDA standards fell behind, and by the time they were ratified, they were practically obsolete. Lore had it that EDA standards took 3 – 6 years to complete. With new semiconductor technology nodes coming along every 3 years or so, standards were clearly not keeping pace.

When the collective EDA industry “we” realized this, new models for standardization were developed. Plus, the venerable IEEE introduced its corporate standards program, and some important EDA standards were produced in record time.

I’ve grouped the standardization models into 4 categories: closed proprietary, company open proprietary, formal committee, and open source. All of these are in play, with each having different strengths and weaknesses. Here are their characteristics and an example of each:

Closed Proprietary

Characteristics

• owned by a single company
• available only to that company’s customers
• fast to evolve and well-supported
• other vendors are not allowed to use them
• greatly reduces tool interoperability

Example

• Cadence’s Physical Design Kit format (PDK)

Company Open Proprietary

Characteristics

• ensures access to everyone
• immediate availability, timely releases
• well-established, well-maintained standards
• significant resources applied by owner

Example

• MAP-in (Milkyway Access Program)

Formal Committee

Characteristics

• consensus-based processes
• membership open to all
• members sincerely want standard to succeed
• can be slow or fast to evolve depending on process

Example

• Unified Power Format (UPF) / IEEE Std. 1801

Open Source

Characteristics

• open to everyone
• members want the standard to succeed
• single person, entity, or company manages enhancements from and to a community
• fast to adoption and fast to evolve
• “forking” can occur without management and commitment

Example

• Open SystemC

Which model is selected for an EDA standard to follow depends on several factors including: maturity of the technology, rate-of-change requirements, industry demands, and business climate. Each has its place in today’s standards game.