Methodics design collaboration platform manages project data, expedites IP delivery across enterprise

DAC 2010, ANAHEIM, USA: Methodics LLC, a leading developer of design data management (DM) tools for ICs, introduced ProjectIC, the industry’s first integrated, non-proprietary chip-centric collaboration platform to target such IC design issues as increasingly large file-sizes and counts, management of multiple DM repositories and multiple DM tools, multiple remote site coordination and overall design complexities.

It increases perceived performance related to the access of design data by 1-2 orders of magnitude.

Unlike competitive solutions, the Methodics ProjectIC design collaboration platform is built on the latest in open-source tools, such as Python, Django and MySQL, and is DM system agnostic with native support for Perforce, Subversion, ClearCase and Design Sync databases.

ProjectIC also provides API access to proprietary corporate databases and data warehouses. Developed specifically to meet the needs of hardware and software designers working together on complex projects across remote design centers, it provides a central collaborative vehicle for IC design, integrating the project development organization with the project management organization.

At the heart of the ProjectIC platform is the Collaboration Catalog, which serves as a complete function catalog for hardware and software IP blocks and allows for a sophisticated reporting on everything from usage to project readiness. It contains libraries of related IP blocks, providing the ability to define global rules that are associated with a set of related IP, such as permissions, repository roots and constructors used to relate best practices.

One of the unique features of the ProjectIC platform is the Client. The Client communicates directly with the catalog, the ProjectIC Replication Server (a local broker for the system that takes requests for new design data and makes the best decision on how to fetch the required data) and the end DM/CM system, optimizing all disk utilization, network traffic and data fetches. This enables ProjectIC to deliver orders of magnitude improvement in performance, even at remote data centers.

“Today, many design organizations struggle to keep project data organized properly and changes communicated effectively, and until now there has been no single way to control, measure or manage the situation,” said Simon Butler, CEO of Methodics.

“ProjectIC is focused on improving the design environment from the designers’ and integrators’ point of view, while providing concise management tools for the IT specialist and project manager. It is a top-down solution that promotes designer best practices, and provides a collaborative platform for the next generation of IP management solutions.”