What is PVCLOUD?
What are the benefits of using PVCLOUD?
How can I run my DRC/LVS task on PVCLOUD?
Is PVCLOUD safe?
Are there any limitations of running PV on PVCLOUD?
How am I going to be billed for PVCLOUD usage?
Can PVCLOUD be accessed from both Windows and Linux?
I am a TowerJazz / X-FAB / IHP customer, how can I use PVCLOUD services?
I am neither a POLYTEDA CLOUD customer nor a customer of the above-mentioned fabs, can I still use PVCLOUD services?
Extra help: info@polyteda-cloud.com or tweet us
1. What is PVCLOUD?
PVCLOUD is an advanced cloud-based physical verification solution for semiconductor industry that consists of PowerDRC/LVS toolset from POLYTEDA and unique Cloud Management System (CMS) specially tailored for EDA needs. PVCLOUD is open for new tools, and friendly EDA vendors are welcomed to join the platform.
2. What are the benefits of using PVCLOUD?
PVCLOUD is times more cost-efficient than the traditional annual subscription for a PV tool primarily due to the employment of pay-per-use business model.
Scalability and flexibility is another significant benefit. For instance, you can run your DRC task for a big layout design using Amazon virtual machine with up to 128 CPUs and get your results in a few minutes rather than hours. Or you can opt for a small machine thus sacrificing some time but saving money. Each user determines how many CPUs to allocate for a specific PV task – the payment is charged for the actually consumed time of the cloud hardware and EDA software.
Last but not least is the benefit of saving infrastructure costs. You will save on the servers and associated costs like power, cooling, space, maintenance, etc.
When it comes to PVCLOUD, there is an overhead associated with uploading your design, initializing an Amazon cloud machine load, and downloading your results back. If your PV task is under 5 minutes then the time to get your results may be doubled on the cloud (but you still pay only for that time not for a year ahead).
Cloud becomes extremely beneficial when the total run time is longer than an hour. PowerDRC/LVS allows splitting independent verification tasks (be it rules or layout parts) among several cloud nodes which will substantially cut your verification time.
3. How can I run my DRC/LVS task on PVCLOUD?
PVCLOUD is running at Amazon AWS. On top of the available hardware resources, POLYTEDA CLOUD provides the user friendly and secured UI (Cloud Management System) to access virtual machines and pre-installed PowerDRC/LVS physical verification toolset. CMS enables submitting PV task(s) either in batch mode or in interactive mode to the cloud nodes, monitoring the task execution, and downloading the results back.
4. Is PVCLOUD safe?
PVCLOUD is installed on top of Amazon AWS EC2 compliant with ISO/IEC 27017 standard on cloud services security.
Firewalls and other networking features are used against different types of Network attacks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, Media Access Control (MAC) or IP spoofing and Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) poisoning, etc.
All data are kept encrypted at all times. No third party, nor even POLYTEDA CLOUD employees, can access the user data at any time. POLYTEDA CLOUD maintains cloud access and encryption keys on a per-customer basis. Keys for cloud access are encrypted with the user’s password. Authentication using this password ensures that the keys are available only to the authorized user to launch and access clusters on PVCLOUD.
5. Are there any limitations of running PV on PVCLOUD?
• Available are machines with up to 128 CPUs
• No direct integration with Cadence or Synopsys design environment is available in a cloud at the moment. That means that e.g. you cannot invoke a verification task in the cloud from a Virtuoso menu, like you do in the desktop version of PowerDRC/LVS.
There are a few limitations for the trial period:
• the total available balance (granted by POLYTEDA) cannot exceed 25 tokens (1 token = 1 USD)
• maximum trial period is set to be 2 weeks
• maximum available disk space is limited up to 10 GB
6. How am I going to be billed for PVCLOUD usage?
The PVCLOUD services are pre-paid. As long as you maintain a positive pre-paid account balance, you can use PowerDRC/LVS for physical verification on any of the available hardware configurations. Cloud management system will charge your account balance every time you run PowerDRC. You are only billed for the actual usage of the PowerDRC/LVS license, i.e. for the time when your PV task is running.
Your pay-per-use total bill will consist of two parts:
• a fee for the usage of the specific Amazon virtual machine, that was selected to run your PV task
• a fee for the usage of PowerDRC/LVS license
7. Can PVCLOUD be accessed from both Windows and Linux?
PVCLOUD as a cloud service is accessed through its web interface, no matter Windows or Linux is run on the end user machine. Even file operations like uploading your data or downloading results are managed by means of a web application. That is, you will have no problems accessing PVCLOUD (which is running under Linux OS) from your Windows machine. Note also that there is a desktop version of PowerDRC/LVS tool available from POLYTEDA for Windows OS upon time-based subscription.
8. I am a TowerJazz / X-FAB / IHP customer, how can I use PVCLOUD services?
TowerJazz, X-FAB and IHP have their own instances of PVCLOUD and provide pay-per-use physical verification services to their users. Please contact your fab to check your NDA and get the account.
9. I am neither a POLYTEDA CLOUD customer nor a customer of the above-mentioned fabs, can I still use PVCLOUD services?
Yes, but in order to register for a cloud account you need to first register at www.polyteda.com and sign NDA and Term of Use. Once your NDA is approved you can request PVCLOUD access.