CircuitSutra Technologies: Enabling Effective and Reliable ESL Methodologies to Design Complex SoC

“CircuitSutra Technologies Pvt Ltd was incorporated with an objective to build a company that will be a leader in its technology space, and will have transformational impact on the semiconductor industry.”

Established with a mission to accelerate the adoption of ESL methodologies in the industry, the 2005 founded company, Circuit Sutra is well positioned to become the preferred “ESL partner of choice” in the Semiconductor industry, due to its laser like focus on ESL and related aspects. Perhaps they are the only company which is 100% focused on ESL domain, and understand all the aspects of ESL.

They continuously enhance CircuitSutra modeling methodology to adopt the latest upcoming standards.

The company has development centers in Noida & Bangalore and serves the global customers from USA, Europe and Asia pacific.

Making a Difference in the ESL Domain
Focusing 100% on ESL domain allows people at CircuitSutra to go deep into the technology and clearly differentiates their firm from any other company in the domain. People at CircuitSutra have defined CircuitSutra modeling methodology which is a collection of tool agnostic re-usable modeling infrastructure compliant with the latest standards, and enables it’s customers to quickly get started with their ESL activities. CircuitSutra has executed projects across the SystemC use case spectrum and has the relevant domain knowledge to quickly get started.

One of the challenges for the ESL adoption in the industry is the lack of resources with right kind of skills. Many SystemC professionals in the industry are not C++ experts, and that is an essential skill required for effective modeling. SoC modeling requires a different approach as compared to conventional chip design, engineers need to understand the use case and develop models at the right level of abstraction (both timing and interfaces). Most of the time customers have very aggressive deadlines, and do not have time to train new resources on the modeling concepts. At CircuitSutra they have done a detailed skills mapping analysis for each ESL use case, defined the quick ramp up packages that allows them to migrate the professionals from adjacent domains into the ESL domain quickly.

A Brief Overview of CircuitSutra’ Journey
The journey of CircuitSutra started in November 2005 with an objective to build a company that will be a leader in its technology space, and will have a transformational impact on the semiconductor industry. It was an era when SystemC was the upcoming language, and its methodologies were still in the research phase. However, the team CircuitSutra was convinced about the promise held forth by this up-start technology to bridge the hardware and software worlds and took a bet on it.

In 2012, the company started an India SystemC user group (ISCUG) conference in collaboration with Accellera. The first edition of the event was organized in Bangalore, and 2nd edition in Noida. The event was attended by who’s who of the SystemC domain from across the globe. In 2014, ISCUG was merged into the DVCon India.

Specializing in working with leading semiconductor companies, the company has witnessed the evolution of ESL methodologies from the research phase to pilot projects to mainstream adoption. They clearly understand the challenges faced by a company when they try to start the ESL activity.

Unique Offerings
Widely applauded as a renowned Electronics System Level (ESL) design IP and Services Company, CircuitSutra’s core competencies include Virtual Prototype (Development, Verification, Deployment), Architecture & Performance modeling, Co-simulation, Co-emulation, High Level Synthesis, SoC & System level verification. They enable their customers to adopt advanced methodologies based on C, C++, SystemC, TLM, IP-XACT, UVM-SystemC, SystemC-AMS, Verilog-AMS, PSL.

ESL methodologies are a set of advanced methodologies for the design and verification of complete systems that encompass the System, SoC, IP & Software. These methodologies help the customers to reduce the time to market for their products, and to design the products which are better optimized for power, performance & area.

CircuitSutra helps its customers become more productive with ESL through SystemC trainings, licensing CST Modeling Library (CSTML) and various Quick Start Packages (QSP) for jump starting development, augmenting Customer teams for Virtual Platform Development and Testing, undertaking turnkey projects etc.

“We are 100% focused on ESL domain, that allows us to go deep into the technology and that clearly differentiates us from any other company.”

Mitigating the Challenges
Being a new and disruptive technology, the question on the certainty of SystemC success was unanswerable in the initial phase. The evolution of SystemC based ESL methodologies and attaining the maturity has taken longer than expected. During all this turbulence, what was required is a high level of commitment & perseverance to keep moving in the right direction. But over a period of time, it is being noticed that ESL methodologies have matured demonstrating several success stories, these are now slowly becoming essential steps for the design of complex SoC.

Going forward, to accomplish their mission to accelerate the adoption of ESL methodologies in the industry, the major challenge is to prepare the talent pool. CircuitSutra has done the detailed skill mapping analysis for various ESL activities, and defined quick ramp up modules based on CircuitSutra modeling methodologies, using which they are able to quickly migrate the professionals from the adjacent domains into the ESL domain.

They are taking several measures to emerge as the best employer in the semiconductor domain in India. They are also in the process of designing the ESOP policy, with an objective to have the most ambitious ESOP scheme implemented in Indian semiconductor industry so far.

CircuitSutra’ Impressive Customer Base
The company specializes in rendering its range of services to companies which hold expertise in designing System on Chip (SoC), Microcontrollers or any company which uses SoC, Microcontrollers in their electronic systems, are the potential customer for CircuitSutra. The company works closely with some of the top 20 semiconductors & electronic system companies worldwide. Their customers include a leading mobile SoC company, a leading company in automotive electronics, a leading player in automotive semiconductor, a leading player in the storage domain, a leading player in networking SoC.

“We are 100% focused on ESL domain, that allows us to go deep into the technology and that clearly differentiates us from any other company.”

Knowing the CEO

Umesh Sisodia, President & CEO – A visionary, Umesh carries over 19 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. Umesh is a SLIETian who completed his B.Tech from SLIET Longowal in 1997. Prior to CircuitSutra, he worked with Semiconductor Complex Ltd and Cadence design systems. He received several awards at Cadence, and also filed a patent in DFM domain. He received the ‘ISBA Entrepreneurship Award, 2008’ from Indian Science & Technology Entrepreneur Park & Business Incubator association. He was the runner up at business plan competition ‘Lakshya – The ultimate goal’ held at Amity Innovation Incubator.