A re-spin is nowadays considered a disaster when a 90nm mask costs half a million, and a 65nm mask over a million, and when three months lost time to market is supposed to lose you 30 per cent of the potential revenues.
Even so, half of all ASIC designs currently go to at least one re-spin. But be consoled. It could be worse.
“When I was a designer in the 1970s and 80s, if we got by with less than five re-spins we were doing well”, says Wally Rhines, CEO of Mentor Graphics, “then we’d have a couple more spins to get full functionality, then a clean-up spin for the parametrics.”
There we go. Sometimes the Good Old Days simply weren’t.
HAPPY BANK HOLIDAY. NEXT POST TUESDAY MAY 6th AM: THE SOUL OF PICOCHIP
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