edXact major contributor in CILOE cluster dedicated to HPC and SaaS

CILOE (“Calcul Intensif pour les Logiciels de CAO Électronique et les applications embarquées”, translates to: “High Performance Computation for EDA and embedded applications“) aims at developing a complete computational infrastructure, including methodologies, software, and security mechanisms in order to facilitate small and mid-sized enterprises (SME) access to this kind of technology. These tools are so compute-intensive that they require supercomputers, clusters and grids, which are out of range for SME mainly for financial reasons. Members of the cluster include two major French companies (BULL, CS-SI), three Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises (SME) (namely edXact, Infiniscale, Probayes) and several local research laboratories and universities, most importantly INRIA and CEA.

edXact’s Jivaro and Comanche software tools handle large amounts of netlist data, RCLK parasitics, which need to be treated by compute intensive matrix operations. By using clustered versions of the tools on HPC infrastructure, the nightly regression tests will be done faster, thus reducing the time necessary for quality assurance before the release of a new software version.

CILOE will also help edXact to develop and deliver versions of its software tools that take advantage of parallel processing. edXact addresses this topic in partnership with BULL and several local universities and research institutions, who gained reputation for excellence in High Performance Computation .HPC versions of edXact’s tools will be available at the end of the project.

“But HPC is only half of the content of this project”, states Mathias Silvant, President and CEO of edXact. “The other half of it is to partner with a team that is capable of setting up a secured environment for an independent computing farm, which can be used in order to offer Software as a Service (SaaS), especially for small and mid-sized companies.” This approach will open the way to more flexible licensing mechanisms than the existing ones.

The prototypes of the tools of the CILOE partners will run on the Hewlett Packard cluster for Minalogic.

The project started in September 2008 with duration of three years. The consortium is investing more than 6 Million Euros into CILOE, partially financed by European funds (FEDER). EDXACT is one of the most contributing partners accounting for about 30% of the investment.