ACADEMIA

Nimbis Services conducted a live demonstration at GOMACTech ’12 of a semiconductor design-to-release-manufacturing cloud supercomputing WorkFlow-as-a-Service (WFaaS) portal, the Trusted Silicon Stratus Demonstration Cloud (TSS-DC). Nimbis Services under contract with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) implemented the TSS-DC as the first virtualized computing cloud for chip design using the open source OpenStack cloud supercomputing middleware and Cisco Systems’ Unified Computing System (UCS). A primary design objective of the TSS-DC was to demonstrate how a private cloud supercomputing architecture could be used to address the supercomputing demands of semiconductor integrated circuit design for key Department of Defense (DoD) research and development labs. According to Robert Graybill, Nimbis’ CEO, “…an operational TSS Demonstration Cloud represents a critical milestone in the execution of the Nimbis’ AFRL contract.”

Utilizing the TSS-DC, co-located at one of Equinix’s IBX data centers in Ashburn, VA, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) ISVs, Cadence Design Systems (CDNS) & Synopsys (SNPS) applications engineers demonstrated the interactive performance of the TSS-DC for a suite of their product portfolios live from the GOMACTech ’12 exhibit floor in Las Vegas. Conference attendees observing the demos were favorably impressed with the virtual desktop performance from a virtual machine running in a data center located 2,500 miles away in Washington, DC, noting desktop performance that was indistinguishable from a locally attached workstation. According to J. Marc Edwards, Lead Architect for Nimbis’ Semiconductor Design Portals, “…a primary component in breaking down misconception barriers towards cloud computing for semiconductor design is proving to design engineers that they will have the equivalent desktop and batch processing performance from a virtual machine running on a data center located across the country as they have on their local machines. The live demonstration of the TSS-DC at GOMACTech successfully put that performance misconception to rest. This is in no small part due to our packets-toprocessor strategy using Cisco’s UCS.” Edwards added, “the semiconductor supply chain has disaggregated into four identity profiles: Designers, Foundries, EDA Suppliers, and IP Providers, and the EDA Supplier is a crucial component in that value chain. When applied to the TSS WFaaS and the semiconductor value chain, cloud computing becomes a disruptive technology. From the TSS WFaaS, positive, new and yet unknown indirect network effects will emerge resulting in additional growth in semiconductor design starts. I’m confident that Nimbis will be at the forefront of these new growth opportunities.”

“Today, more and more organizations are transferring their critical data and computing workloads to the cloud and reaping the benefits. By leveraging Platform Equinix to support the TSS-DC, the Nimbis team gains a secure and high-performance infrastructure platform to meet the rigorous latency, throughput, and availability demands of a semiconductor chip design environment,” said Vince DiMemmo, general manager, global enterprise for Equinix.

Also announced and available starting in July, 2012, Nimbis is offering the TSS EDA Cloud Pak (eDACPak) where customers can experience cloud-based semiconductor design-to-release-manufacturing on the TSS Cloud. “The TSS eDACPak represents an excellent way through which engineering teams can take a test flight in an innovative secure cloud computing chip design environment,” Graybill explained.

“With the industry partnerships and alliances that Nimbis has assembled to date to bring the TSS-DC online, I’m excited about additional TSS services that Nimbis will be bringing online in the next six months.”