FPGA, CPLD in Egypt ?!

haytham said:

Hi Omara
You are saying that Sysdsoft are system level and they are rarly doing tapeouts. I don't know where you got your info from. As far as I know, in thier first year, they did about 2 or 3 tapeouts.

Also you said that Mentor IP team is not a design team and they never went to silicicon. Also, I don't know where you got your info from. May be you are not updated enough to claim that.
What do you know about Mentor USB team and Sedes team here in Egypt. What do you know about the number of tapeouts they made. Also what do you know about the Digital design team and their focus in the next period.

Also you said about SWS that their tapeout are done with aid of some people outside SWS. What is the shame in doing that. At least they did it and they had trained their engineers to do this in the next time.

These words are to clear the facts (from my point of view) that seems to be not clear for all the people here.
I do beleive that IC industry is growing in Egypt in a reasonable rate.

Thanks
Haytham

Click to expand...

Dear Haytham, thanks for updating my info.

Hi everybody,

I agree that, may be in the point of view of some of you here the VLSI industry in egypt is not so proff. but we must all agree that it is growing up.

For those who are not satisfied with the current situation...
Don't you remember about 5 years ago???? when there was no SYSDSOFT or SWS or even IP team in mentor, when the only VLSI chance to work in that field in egypt was in MEMS cap?????

I think we should thank god for the new oppertunities in that field in egypt provided by the new satrtup companies that may not be so proff, but some day they will be, and we should do our best to help them grow if we would like to keep this bussniss in egypt.

Regards,
Shohdy

Hi Mr. omara007

from your are argument, it seems that you are the manager of the IC Design field in Egypt
Many years of experience, many knowledge areas that you assume no one knows about, etc..

Would you please tell me about your great contributions in this field in Egypt, which gave you the permission to talk about all the companies working in Egypt without most probably knowing anything about them.
Definetely when we work in backend, Physical synthesis, DFT and even using Magma tools, no one has ever mentioned Mr.omara007 as being the expert whom we need to refer to.

I cant understand what you are trying to point out here

Please ...
Dont talk about other companies efforts in this way where they seem a bunch of amateurs practicing in a summer course, they are much more professional than you would even imagine ...

for the Colleague who needs components, please pm me as I can help you get everything you want from here in Egypt. (everything ...)

fakhry2002 said:

Hi Mr. omara007

from your are argument, it seems that you are the manager of the IC Design field in Egypt
Many years of experience, many knowledge areas that you assume no one knows about, etc..

Would you please tell me about your great contributions in this field in Egypt, which gave you the permission to talk about all the companies working in Egypt without most probably knowing anything about them.
Definetely when we work in backend, Physical synthesis, DFT and even using Magma tools, no one has ever mentioned Mr.omara007 as being the expert whom we need to refer to.

I cant understand what you are trying to point out here

Please ...
Dont talk about other companies efforts in this way where they seem a bunch of amateurs practicing in a summer course, they are much more professional than you would even imagine ...

for the Colleague who needs components, please pm me as I can help you get everything you want from here in Egypt. (everything ...)

Click to expand...

Dear fakhry2002

It was better to receive your comments rather talking about myself ..

I'm egyptian .. and indeed am an IC manager .. and have been working in IC design in Egypt for 7 years .. and I worked in the US silicon valley and in the Malaysian silicon valley as well ..

I don't need to tell again that my argument was to let the people know that we still don't have an engineer for every position in the design flow ..

If you know Magma, it's good for you .. I wished all other engineer knew what Magma is too .. please tell us where did you learn Magma or get a support for it.

For all others here in the discussion .. I wonder that you believe the VLSI started in Egypt 3 years ago ...

I no more want to hear answers to my questions .. I already knew enough about who is working now in the IC design ..

Hi omara,

Your main argument which you claim to be:
"we don't have an engineer for every position in the design flow in egypt"

has a very simple answer: BECAUSE EGYPT IS STILL IN ITS START UP IN THIS BUSSNISS

I don't think the major companies in the field started with an engineer for every part of the design flow (the ideal model of the design flow that you have been talking about).

Also since in egypt we don't have a single engineer for every part of the design flow, and we can complete the whole flow successfully, then we can simply conclude that an engineer can do more than one part of the flow, which is a credit.

Regards,
Shohdy

Shohdy said:

Hi omara,

Your main argument which you claim to be:
"we don't have an engineer for every position in the design flow in egypt"

has a very simple answer: BECAUSE EGYPT IS STILL IN ITS START UP IN THIS BUSSNISS

I don't think the major companies in the field started with an engineer for every part of the design flow (the ideal model of the design flow that you have been talking about).

Also since in egypt we don't have a single engineer for every part of the design flow, and we can complete the whole flow successfully, then we can simply conclude that an engineer can do more than one part of the flow, which is a credit.

Regards,
Shohdy

Click to expand...

Dear Shohdy

I will repeat my claim again for clarity ..

1- Egypt is NOT starting up in this business .. EGYPT started the design business more than 10 years ago .. I mentioned that clearly before .. maybe most of you guys were still in academia.


2- I didn't say a SINGLE engineer for every position in the design flow .. I said just an engineer .. this is different in a way that maybe this engineer can cover more than one job .. and for those who know me in person, they definetly know that in any of my seminars here and there I always say we can't be like US, a single engineer for every single thing .. as we currently don't have much people to cover ..

3- Seems to me that most of you are relatively young and never even heard of companies like Ellipsis Digital Systems .. AiM .. etc.
Has anyone of you heard of Al-Wesam company ?


Guys .. try to be more open .. if someone worked in one good company this doesn't mean the end of the world ..

If you guys really know about the history of IC design in Egypt .. go and ask someone like SysDSoft founder, how much he suffered to finally open SysDSoft .. ask him how many copmanies didn't succeed before, before he startup his own ..

I don't blame you .. but non of those who replied me with "anger" managed to go back beyond couple of years ago and tell me when we started IC design ..

Non of you know how a multi-million gate chip is produced .. and badly non of you gave me the feel that "we really feel that should be done" .. except for HUSSEIN and SALMA ..

Non of you know how an egyptian feels when he works abroad and comes back to see barely a tapeout is happening in his country ... I don't say we don't have good local startups .. I never said that .. I said we don't have the professional flow implemented (again am talking about Digital) .. and I don't see a reason for the delay ..

I didn't hear fakhry2002 telling us where did he use Magma in Egypt ? .. and How many others do use Magma too ?? ..

I would love to end this discussion with the following :
For anyone here in the discussion, please go to TSMC, UMC or any famous fab website .. and get any design flow from it .. compare it with your own design flow .. and tell me how many tasks are covered by you and your friends ..

This follows by you start covering the gaps .. tell everyone u know about this professional flow .. and start building a team (theoritically) of engineers to cover the complete flow ..

P.S. Don't forget to think of how we can get the tools mentioned in the flow.


Thanks
Omara007

Hi,

Before ending this disscussion which is becoming kind of boring I would likr to say a couple of things:

1) You said that egypt didn't start that buissniss recently but statrted this bussniss 10 years ago, I think the right phrase is that egypt tried to start this bussnis 10 years ago but faild, and it tried again recently but this time the results were better.


2) You said that it seems to you that most of us here are young and didn't hear about companies like Elipsis and Aim. I know many of the people talking on this thread, I can tell you that they have been in this field at least 4 to 6 years. And many of them worked or at least had interviews in the ancient companies you mentiond, about me I was in the field when Elipsis fell out and when Aim came up, I even had an interview in the meridian before they had a place.

I just want to highlight that again you speak about things that you seem to know very little about....and that's what is making this disscussion become quite boring.

Regards,
Shohdy

Shohdy said:

Hi,

Before ending this disscussion which is becoming kind of boring I would likr to say a couple of things:

1) You said that egypt didn't start that buissniss recently but statrted this bussniss 10 years ago, I think the right phrase is that egypt tried to start this bussnis 10 years ago but faild, and it tried again recently but this time the results were better.


2) You said that it seems to you that most of us here are young and didn't hear about companies like Elipsis and Aim. I know many of the people talking on this thread, I can tell you that they have been in this field at least 4 to 6 years. And many of them worked or at least had interviews in the ancient companies you mentiond, about me I was in the field when Elipsis fell out and when Aim came up, I even had an interview in the meridian before they had a place.

I just want to highlight that again you speak about things that you seem to know very little about....and that's what is making this disscussion become quite boring.

Regards,
Shohdy

Click to expand...

Being reasonable .. I am waiting for answers to my technical questions .. and more, I would appreciate if you, knowledgable guys, list me the tapeouts you did ..
consider me a guy from stone age ..

Regards
omara007

omara007 said:

Shohdy said:

Hi,

Before ending this disscussion which is becoming kind of boring I would likr to say a couple of things:

1) You said that egypt didn't start that buissniss recently but statrted this bussniss 10 years ago, I think the right phrase is that egypt tried to start this bussnis 10 years ago but faild, and it tried again recently but this time the results were better.


2) You said that it seems to you that most of us here are young and didn't hear about companies like Elipsis and Aim. I know many of the people talking on this thread, I can tell you that they have been in this field at least 4 to 6 years. And many of them worked or at least had interviews in the ancient companies you mentiond, about me I was in the field when Elipsis fell out and when Aim came up, I even had an interview in the meridian before they had a place.

I just want to highlight that again you speak about things that you seem to know very little about....and that's what is making this disscussion become quite boring.

Regards,
Shohdy

Click to expand...

Being reasonable .. I am waiting for answers to my technical questions .. and more, I would appreciate if you, knowledgable guys, list me the tapeouts you did ..
consider me a guy from stone age ..

Regards
omara007

Click to expand...

AA

well, i dont know why this discussion went like that,,, it is very useful to exchange info. , may mis-understanding happens between some, but in the first place, discussions must have a useful purposes,

Added after 1 minutes:

omara007 said:

Shohdy said:

Hi,

Before ending this disscussion which is becoming kind of boring I would likr to say a couple of things:

1) You said that egypt didn't start that buissniss recently but statrted this bussniss 10 years ago, I think the right phrase is that egypt tried to start this bussnis 10 years ago but faild, and it tried again recently but this time the results were better.


2) You said that it seems to you that most of us here are young and didn't hear about companies like Elipsis and Aim. I know many of the people talking on this thread, I can tell you that they have been in this field at least 4 to 6 years. And many of them worked or at least had interviews in the ancient companies you mentiond, about me I was in the field when Elipsis fell out and when Aim came up, I even had an interview in the meridian before they had a place.

I just want to highlight that again you speak about things that you seem to know very little about....and that's what is making this disscussion become quite boring.

Regards,
Shohdy

Click to expand...

Being reasonable .. I am waiting for answers to my technical questions .. and more, I would appreciate if you, knowledgable guys, list me the tapeouts you did ..
consider me a guy from stone age ..

Regards
omara007

Click to expand...

AA

well, i dont know why this discussion went like that,,, it is very useful to exchange info. , may mis-understanding happens between some, but in the first place, discussions must have a useful purposes in a civilian way

Dear Hussein

You are right ..
I think everyone is free to participate and give his opinion .. and that was mine based on claim .. I would love to hear that I am wrong based on evidence .. I would love to see you all having tapeouts in your resume .. I felt frustrated when I interviewed 30 engineers, non of them did a single tape out .. except those who lived abroad.

Our companies are good .. and I know them well .. and I know most of their founders in person .. I belong to a generation who experienced the whole start of the IC design business in Egypt ..

Having unsuccessful companies in the past is the reason to look after WHY were they unsuccessful ? .. anyone asked?

We still don't have a Back-End Infrastructure in Egypt .. the critical mass that's capable of taking your design to the end .. we do the backend abroad ..

I say all that to tell the people we need not to be satisfied with ourselves ..

I do really appreciate your words hussein .. and I do also appreciate others .. and I am quite sure they will change their way looking to things after couple of years ..

Best of luck to you all ..

Mr Omara007

The problem is in your way of argument.
You are assuming that you are the most experienced, went everywhere, and know everything about the Design centers in Egypt

You gave a strange impression that nobody can do backend or a tapeout in Egypt, this is very far from truth, Our team has done more than 30 tapeouts, mostly all including digital backend if this is your concern.

I know a lot of experienced people in digital backend, if you dont know them, its your personal problem.

Your argument about Magma is a joke, the industry standard in the digital backend is Encounter from Cadence, it was previously called Silicon Ensemble till 1999.
Comes next is was the synopsys flow. In the past few years, a new company developing new technologies , Magma , started. Its market share and its name compared to the other two is much smaller.

I would believe that in an argument, a backend Engineer that doesnt know Encounter would be something strange, but Blast ... Definately not.

fakhry2006 (upgraded ... )

SA All
Really I didn't like the words "Seems to me that most of you are relatively young" written by Omra. I do beleive that this kind of syntax is the reason of taking the discussion away of its original target.
Also the cliam of things the one is not sure about is also a reason for this.

I am agreeing with both Shohdy and Fakhry about their opinions.

Ahh, I forgot to say that my chance was pretty good to hear about the Brand names like "El-Wessam" ,"Elippsis" ,"MEMSCAP" and also "Aim". Also I got the chance to make interviews in the last three. May aslo it worth for some people here to say that I also know "Reem".

May be after this I can shout proudly "I AM GROWN UP" and there are people here who also have their reputable experince in contrast to what others try to claim again.

My work mates are between 12,10,7,6,4,3,1 and 0 years of experience we are all working together without remembering each other about our relative experince.

Thanks
Haytham

Dear all ..

I didn't say "I'm the most experienced"
maybe this is the way you look to my words Mr. Fakhry :!:

Anyhow .. I didn't mention anything about myself until you said : "As if you are an IC Manager" .. at this moment, I just agreed on what you said .. I am indeed that man ..

You mentioned Magma .. not me
About Encounter .. good to hear that there people using it hear .. in case this is what u mean .. Encounter .. Magma .. Synopsys stuff .. anything is good as long as people are digging in the backend .. no matter what EDA vendor is .. as long as some other companies are taping out using it ..

P.S. Encounter is no more named Encounter .. it's called SoC Encounter .. Update ..

look guys .. I'm not here to talk about myself or my experience .. I am completely out of phase if I'm concerned about this .. I wanted to point out a problem and seems that very little of you want to be open to solve it ..

Untill this moment, no one told me what is the tool used here for Synthesis .. and how many copmanies are taping out using SoC Encounter for example .. or even Magma .. given that the industry standard is not just Encounter or Magma or Synopsys stuff .. the backend guys are mix of many tools coming from many vendors ..

I expected you to discuss technically with me .. to tell me about your world if you indeed think I'm dates .. though, what I see is different ..

For all those who didn't like my way .. I'm sorry .. and thanks for everything ..

your brother
Mohammad

A good ice ball ..... MAN !!!!!!

Dear all (ENGINEERS !!!),

Please notice the followings:

1) This guy has joined the forum at 12 Aug 2006, this is the same date of his message.

2) No -ever- other posts have been published by this guy, until this reply date.

3) Remember what all of u have felt after joining the forum, i - my self - had no time to do anything in my life except reading as much posts as i can all the day. This is because i was really an electronics maniac. But the first thing this guy have done is to through his ice ball... and it worked very well because of your unconciousness (Sorry to be rude.. but it's clear enough).

4) This guy (claims) to live in a city other than your capital one. and (claims) also his interest in FPGAs, Please tell me, how much time does it take you to get interrested in this technology, how much prototypes (minimum no.) u must have been made to get to this level, then calculate how much times this guy is supposed to deal with electronics spareparts stores in HIS CLAIMED CITY. This leads to a personality that is completely used to these situations. THIS PERSONALITY WILL NOT JOIN A HUGE FORUM LIKE EDABOARD.COM JUST TO COMPLAIN FOR IT'S NIGHTMARES ... DOES THIS MAKE SENSE AT ALL?

5) WHAT A HELL OF A MARKET ANALYSIS HAVE U GIVEN THIS GUY !!!! I thought that engineering is based mainly on problem analysis, and u all have been
VERY WELL stimulated by a few words with your country name.

6) Please, Re-Read all of his posts, they are all based on activating this debate then redirecting it the way he wants.

7) In my opinion, this guy has to prove his point or YOU all have to be carefull dealing with these types of suspicious traps.

8) PLEASE ACCEPT MY DEEPEST APPOLOGIES IF I'VE SAID ANYTHING RUDE... BUT THIS IS REALLY REDICULOUS. I DO PREFER TO ASK FOR A SOLUTION THAN TO SEND MY CURSES TO EVERYBODY..., JUST BECAUSE THEY R NOT me.

Thanks very much for your time.

N.B., I'll not contribute to this debate anymore.

Hi,

Although I don't agree with bus master in his opinion about Mr. omara, as many of us in this thread know him very well, and some even know him personally.

But I agree with him that this debate is going way out of track, and if it is to continue we need to redefine the argument.

Regards,
Shohdy

Re: A good ice ball ..... MAN !!!!!!

Bus Master said:

Dear all (ENGINEERS !!!),

Please notice the followings:

1) This guy has joined the forum at 12 Aug 2006, this is the same date of his message.

2) No -ever- other posts have been published by this guy, until this reply date.

3) Remember what all of u have felt after joining the forum, i - my self - had no time to do anything in my life except reading as much posts as i can all the day. This is because i was really an electronics maniac. But the first thing this guy have done is to through his ice ball... and it worked very well because of your unconciousness (Sorry to be rude.. but it's clear enough).

4) This guy (claims) to live in a city other than your capital one. and (claims) also his interest in FPGAs, Please tell me, how much time does it take you to get interrested in this technology, how much prototypes (minimum no.) u must have been made to get to this level, then calculate how much times this guy is supposed to deal with electronics spareparts stores in HIS CLAIMED CITY. This leads to a personality that is completely used to these situations. THIS PERSONALITY WILL NOT JOIN A HUGE FORUM LIKE EDABOARD.COM JUST TO COMPLAIN FOR IT'S NIGHTMARES ... DOES THIS MAKE SENSE AT ALL?

5) WHAT A HELL OF A MARKET ANALYSIS HAVE U GIVEN THIS GUY !!!! I thought that engineering is based mainly on problem analysis, and u all have been
VERY WELL stimulated by a few words with your country name.

6) Please, Re-Read all of his posts, they are all based on activating this debate then redirecting it the way he wants.

7) In my opinion, this guy has to prove his point or YOU all have to be carefull dealing with these types of suspicious traps.

8) PLEASE ACCEPT MY DEEPEST APPOLOGIES IF I'VE SAID ANYTHING RUDE... BUT THIS IS REALLY REDICULOUS. I DO PREFER TO ASK FOR A SOLUTION THAN TO SEND MY CURSES TO EVERYBODY..., JUST BECAUSE THEY R NOT me.

Thanks very much for your time.

N.B., I'll not contribute to this debate anymore.

Click to expand...

I don't think you are talking about me .. r u ?

you said " joined the forum at 12 Aug 2006" .. well .. anyone can see my joining date .. and the no. of participations ..


And for my location .. it's the same as most of the nicknames .. not real .. though it is meaningful to me ..

I don't know why people got frustrated upon a discussion .. even if I was 100% against you all .. I still have the right to talk .. and u too .. what's wrong in that ? ..

we are all civilized and even if each one has his own point of view, the other still has to respect it .. I showed my respect and I didn't humilate anyone ..

Please stop the discussion in this topic if you believe that there is no further thing to be said .. I myself belive so ..

End of discussion.

Hi,

I owe you all an appology as it seems that my last message has caused a confusion.
I thought Busmaster was talking about omara, but he was actually talking about the guy who started this thread.

So Sorry again for the mis-understanding.

Regards,
Shohdy

Shohdy said:

Hi,

I owe you all an appology as it seems that my last message has caused a confusion.
I thought Busmaster was talking about omara, but he was actually talking about the guy who started this thread.

So Sorry again for the mis-understanding.

Regards,
Shohdy

Click to expand...

Dear Shohdy..
Not at all .. you are all my brothers .. all we have said was intending to let all of us move and change what's wrong if indeed something wrong exists ..
I'm glad for that chance that made me meet u all ..
Regards
Mohammad

hi all,

i think i am the guy busmaster is talking about.

believe me , believe me , i am not satan.

with my magical few words of frustration i sparked the fire between the members in this forum which will some how lead to the destruction of the ic industry in egypt.

well i want to think of my self as being this powerful but i am not.

i live in tanta , i don't know cairo well , i have been to al-nakhily and the electronic shops around him (which are many) and i didn't find what i am looking for that is fpgas.

i googled every thing that i could to be able to find a supplier for fpgas. but i didn't find anything , this forum came on the search and i saw some egyptians so i supposed i could sign up and ask.

i didn't mean for this thread to go on like that (although i don't know what "that" is)
but i am sorry anyway.

so am i interested in fpgas? yes although i didn't use one in my life.

and the concept of programmable logic is simple , i know programming , i know how to program irrespective of the programming language used , learning the language is not the problem be it c, visual basic or verilog.

in fact i saw a program written in verilog that was very easy that i could understand it , and i didn't see verilog before.

i know also that designing a digital circuit is easy , especially if your board didn't contain any thing exept for the fpga , sothe hardware side is easy.

although i never used a programmable logic ic before , i know it will be a simple task , yes it is true.

what could be hard .

the software may be so simple , or may be complex.

is impleminting PCI on fpga hard ? well pci is complex but still a bunch of simple i/o
programming.

is impleminting any protocol in fpga hard ? i say no.

is impleminting dsp of any kind hard? also, the one thing u need to know is the theory behind ur design (which was made years ago and u r only using a new technology to implement it), then your job is to transform this mathymatical theory into steps the computer can understand or the fpga execute.

so working with fpga i think is more like programming , than a hardware design , except of course u intend to connect ur fpga to another device or ic (and how hard could that be too?)

i am still a student in engineering , i don't know where i should get the things i want ,i want to practice electroincs not just study the theory, but i didn't see any thing to encourage me except me!


and now i can't find how to get fpgas except for buying online , which seems to be the best solution , and which seems to be the road that i am taking.

causeitso said:

with my magical few words of frustration i sparked the fire between the members in this forum which will some how lead to the destruction of the ic industry in egypt.

Click to expand...

never, ic industry in egypt now bigger than to be easily destroyed , i think all what happen is due to mis-understanding, glad for this discussion

regards