Comment Re:These designs are in bluespec (Score 1) 125
I run marketing at Bluespec. Someone pointed out this post to me and I was hoping to address the points made and provide a Bluespec perspective:
* Though we don't publicly discuss pricing, we offer many different pricing options so please don't make a buying decision off of rumors. This post alluded to one of our more valuable options: a worldwide floating toolset license to build ASICs. While this license is priced above $200K, this type of license is popular with our multi-national semiconductor customers. Note that this is NOT per seat pricing, but is for a floating, simultaneous user license available for use by any worldwide location in the company. And, by the way, this pricing is for a compiler that runs quickly and supports reasonably sized design teams.
* That said, pricey depends on what you value. We've consistently seen our customers complete projects in less than half the time on their FIRST projects after spending less than a week in training. These designs have significantly fewer bugs. And, these designs are typically much more flexible, with much better parameterization. What's the savings in completing a project in half the time? What's the value in getting to market in half the time?
I'd argue that getting to market late or buggy is pretty pricey for a startup.
(For those that can use MIT's IP, you, of course, also can consider the value of getting an HD-quality H.264 decoder or an OFDM transceiver design for free.)
* "Jump through enough hoops"??? We're providing very valuable tools for free to accredited, degree-granting academic institutions. All we ask for in return is about 10 minutes of effort per year. All an institution has to do is fill out and fax two short forms ( (see http://www.bluespec.com/partnerships/UniversityProg.htm). Perhaps some of the universities that have applied through our program today can talk about how burdensome a process this was.
* Though we don't publicly discuss pricing, we offer many different pricing options so please don't make a buying decision off of rumors. This post alluded to one of our more valuable options: a worldwide floating toolset license to build ASICs. While this license is priced above $200K, this type of license is popular with our multi-national semiconductor customers. Note that this is NOT per seat pricing, but is for a floating, simultaneous user license available for use by any worldwide location in the company. And, by the way, this pricing is for a compiler that runs quickly and supports reasonably sized design teams.
* That said, pricey depends on what you value. We've consistently seen our customers complete projects in less than half the time on their FIRST projects after spending less than a week in training. These designs have significantly fewer bugs. And, these designs are typically much more flexible, with much better parameterization. What's the savings in completing a project in half the time? What's the value in getting to market in half the time?
I'd argue that getting to market late or buggy is pretty pricey for a startup.
(For those that can use MIT's IP, you, of course, also can consider the value of getting an HD-quality H.264 decoder or an OFDM transceiver design for free.)
* "Jump through enough hoops"??? We're providing very valuable tools for free to accredited, degree-granting academic institutions. All we ask for in return is about 10 minutes of effort per year. All an institution has to do is fill out and fax two short forms ( (see http://www.bluespec.com/partnerships/UniversityProg.htm). Perhaps some of the universities that have applied through our program today can talk about how burdensome a process this was.
