IBM,
Intel announce mobile workstation pilot for design engineers
Posted: 08 June 2004
Mobile workstation platform enhances productivity using
Cadence Design Systems software and the Linux operating system
IBM
and Intel Corporation announced their collaboration on a
new Linux-based mobile workstation pilot designed to increase the
productivity of engineers working in one of today’s most
demanding computing fields -- Electronic Design Automation (EDA).
The new platform combines the strengths of Intel Centrino
mobile technology, IBM ThinkPad notebooks and Cadence Design Systems
software.
With IBM ThinkPad mobile workstations, engineers will be able
to design and collaborate virtually anywhere while away from their
offices. Intel developers are already using the solution in pilot
form for engineering and product development functions, with plans
for broader deployment starting in the second half of the year.
Cadence, IBM and Intel representatives are demonstrating the solution
this week at booth #1031 at the Design Automation Conference, an
international meeting of electronics design professionals.
“With this new platform, mobility is taking a significant
step forward,” said Guru Bhatia, general manager of engineering
computing at Intel Corporation. “Engineers will get the flexibility
and productivity of Intel Centrino mobile technology with the outstanding
performance that Electronic Design Automation software requires.
This will help accelerate product development cycles so that semiconductor
manufacturers can get products to market faster and ultimately
be more competitive.”
“This solution will change the
way engineers work,” says Kevin Reardon, general manager,
IBM global electronics industry. “Engineers will have a ThinkPad
mobile workstation with the ability to do advanced design work
wirelessly and securely, expanding their options of where and when
they work. Beyond the freedom they gain to do mobile circuit-design
work, they will also have the ability to perform routine office
tasks -- they will no longer be required to switch workstations
between the office and the lab. Configuring workstations with the
tools needed by engineers is one of the ways IBM is enabling an
on demand world.”
Electronic Design Automation has historically been conducted on
desktop workstations, offering the processor speeds and memory
requirements necessary for industrial-strength applications.
However,
new technologies and solutions introduced during the last six
months have made an IBM ThinkPad-based mobile workstation a viable
solution
for EDA:
• The recently introduced Intel® Pentium® M processors
735, 745, and 755 – key components of Intel Centrino mobile
technology – offer higher speeds and 2MB of Level 2 cache,
boosting mobile computing performance by up to 17 percent (as compared
with the previous generation processor).
• IBM launched the ThinkPad T42p mobile workstation with
these processors in May, offering superior graphics performance
and a large 15-inch Flexview screen, viewable from 170 degrees,
making the industry-standard thin-and-light notebook more appropriate
for collaborative design applications. New IBM ThinkVantage Technologies,
such as an “air bag” for protecting data on hard drives
if the notebook is dropped, also support mission-critical applications
in the field. “Cadence has been fully engaged on the pilot
projects with IBM and Intel and is working hard to deliver the
highest performance solutions for our customers,” said Lavi
Lev, executive vice president and GM, Implementation Division,
Cadence Design Systems, Inc. “The combination of Intel mobile
technology inside IBM notebooks, and running our Virtuoso custom
design platform, provides our customers with the flexibility and
productivity to further reduce design cycle time and time to market
for complex ICs.”
The IBM ThinkPad platform will enable customers to select and
acquire their choice of operating environment. The Linux operating
system is being used in the current pilot project, and has become
increasingly popular for engineering in key industries such as
automotive, energy, electronics, pharmaceutical and life sciences – sectors
that have traditionally relied on UNIX-based platforms for collaborative
product design and development.
The combination of the latest IBM ThinkPad mobile workstations,
Intel Pentium M processors and Cadence software delivers a significant
performance improvement and faster design throughput. Initial testing
with Cadence’s Virtuoso* Spectre Circuit Simulator indicates
that the Intel Pentium M processor 745 (1.8 GHz, codenamed Dothan)
delivers a performance gain of 56 percent when compared with the
Pentium M processor at 1.7 GHz (codenamed Banias).
This improved
performance, combined with the benefits of mobility, can enable
significant productivity improvements in the field of EDA.
In addition to Intel, engineers at National Semiconductor and
IBM Microelectronics are using the IBM ThinkPad mobile workstation
in pilot form.
“We are now experiencing a paradigm shift in the way we
design our chips, and this shift is being accelerated by the advent
of mobile computing,” said Steven Klass, CAD technical manager,
National Semiconductor, and chair of the International Cadence
Usergroup SysSIG. “Mobile computing enables an environment
that un-tethers our design engineers, which in turn improves productivity,
and reduces time-to-market. In short, it allows us to design from
any where at any time.”
“The IBM Microelectronics Division is committed to the mobile
engineering platform as a long-term use model,” said Dale
Hoffman, director of business development and CTO, IBM Electronic
Design Technology Solutions. “The platform’s flexibility
has already generated significant productivity gains and we’re
actively looking to expand this usage model.”
Mobile workstations also have the potential to transform computing
for the energy, oil and gas industry, enabling high-performance
mobility for geoscientists and engineers. Similar IBM ThinkPad
mobile workstation solutions for the energy industry will be demonstrated
at the European Association of Geophysicists and Engineers (EAGE)
Conference in Paris this week.
The mobile workstation solution is available in custom deployments
from IBM Global Services, which offers consulting, deployment and
implementation services for Linux-based solutions.
For
more information, see:
IMB: www.ibm.com/thinkpad or
Intel: www.intel.com/products/centrino/more_info
Posted by Richard Price,
Editor Pipeline Magazine
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