Profile of ATopTech, P&R Upstart

ATopTech is an EDA startup with a goofy name but a hot P&R product, according to rumors on John Cooley's DeepChip site. Does the Industry Need Another P&R System? is an interview with Eric Thune, the VP of Sales & Marketing at ATopTech. He describes a lot of technical features of the tool, and makes specific claims of where they are better than the competition.

The technology just sounds mind-boggling. I'm sure there are other EDA systems with such impressive algorithms, but to see all the capabilities enumerated and to try to imagine how to do it all -- why it makes my head spin as "just another Perl hacker". A couple of quotes that impressed me: "If you look at many of the members of our team, you see that this is their third commercial place and route system that they have built. They know all about the challenges and the mistakes that have been made." and "The feedback from our customers is that our R&D has done a phenomenal job on customer request. They turn those around quickly. With some of the big guys, they do not see a release for six months. Our customers are asking for things and seeing them in days or weeks."

Normally I don't like the extra-long interviews posted on EDA Cafe, but this interview is worthwhile if you're interested in "what's hot" in IC implementation.