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I contacted the Cadence office as a PhD student and also a faculty member to inquiry their price for an academic license. After 8 emails back and forth I noticed that they are not willing to answer the simple question of how much we have to pay to get access to Cadence Virtuoso software.

It surprised me a lot and I felt upset and stopped the email communication. I actually fully understand now why people tend to use pirated software instead of paying for it.

I sincerely tried to pay for a license and could not even get a quoted price!

Can someone explain here why do we have such secretive behavior? There is no price list on their website and even when you contact them they don't reveal it. Very strange indeed.

Update:

To make this a better question and not a rant, I should tailor my question:

What other options are available for IC Layout design when Cadence is not an option?

Dr. Ehsan Ali
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  • Check their website for distributors in your region, and contact them. They set their own margins and thus prices. Cadence won't give you a figure because it might contradict the local distributor. Common practice for professional EDA software. –  Jul 29 '16 at 09:15
  • I actually contacted the distributor in my region "Asia Pacific and Australia" as it is stated here and still could not get an answer: https://www.cadence.com/content/cadence-www/global/en_US/home/services/cadence-academic-network/university-software-program/worldwide-university-contact-information.html – Dr. Ehsan Ali Jul 29 '16 at 09:19
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    @BrianDrummond It is a sickness of the market though, that this needs to take so much effort. Any other segment working in a similar way it takes all of 1 e-mail to be in contact with the right person. Some times not even that. 8 mails is 7 too many to send before being put into contact with the right person directly. – Asmyldof Jul 29 '16 at 09:20
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because software pricing practices has nothing to do with electronics design. – pipe Jul 29 '16 at 09:57
  • @Asmyldof : indeed. I was reporting, not condoning. Part of it is that the company expects its distributors to do their job - not realising they don't. IMO "the right person" is the head of marketing who should be on top of them. And it's not just APAC either. In the UK, I was once quoted a 6 week leadtime for a software download (!!!) –  Jul 29 '16 at 09:59
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    @pipe - I'd agree if it was about the pricing practices. But (non) availability of tools does have an impact on design. –  Jul 29 '16 at 10:01
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    @pipe Sorry, but I'm with Brian. The question is legitimate. The OP didn't ask for a purchasing advice, but had a real problem with industrial practices, which affects *EE design* (note that this site is not only about *circuit design*, but *EE design*, which is a vaster topic). – LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike Jul 29 '16 at 10:10
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    So what kind of answer is expected? An official answer from Cadence? This is a question about how a single company distributes their product, and can not be answered by anyone except Cadence. This is simply a frustrated rant, it's not a question. If this had been "Where can I buy an LM393, I can not find prices anywhere" it would have been closed in 5 seconds. – pipe Jul 29 '16 at 10:10
  • @pipe: If you have had ever the chance of designing a real IC (I mean something beyond simple SPICE simulation that they teach to undergraduate kids) you could easily see that for example for real foundry 7 out of 13 supported EDA tools are Cadence tools, 4/13 is Synopsis and 2/13 is Mentor. Now you can see the depth of impact that Cadence can make by refusing to make their tools available to an eager IC designer. – Dr. Ehsan Ali Jul 29 '16 at 10:11
  • @pipe I suppose the OP expects advices from expert designers on how to proceed or what alternatives he could have at his disposal. – LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike Jul 29 '16 at 10:11
  • BTW, what kind of software are you looking for? A SPICE simulator or what else? – LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike Jul 29 '16 at 10:13
  • @LorenzoDonati: I just got my hands on real SPICE models of 0.35u (had to sign an NDA with the foundry on behalf of my university) So I need Cadence Virtuoso for layout design and SPICE simulation using 0.35u technology. I am not sure if I can use LTSpice for that. can I? (I hope I can, just the simulation part, not layout) – Dr. Ehsan Ali Jul 29 '16 at 10:18
  • I'm not at all an expert in chip design, but I know linear technology uses ltspice as an in-house SPICE program for their chips design, so I suppose that it is an option worth trying. – LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike Jul 29 '16 at 10:29
  • BTW, IIRC the LTspice license is very permissive, allowing you to use it for anything, even professional/commercial activities, *unless you are competing with LinearTechnology on the chip design market*. So you *may* be considered not covered by the free license. But I'm reasonably sure that if you contact Linear, not only will they clarify whether their free license apply to you (after all you are doing academic work, if I got it right), but they might give you advice on whether LTspice is good for your task. – LorenzoDonati4Ukraine-OnStrike Jul 29 '16 at 10:39
  • @LorenzoDonati: LTSpice is OK for simulation (you can feed into it the real transistor SPICE model as a sub-circuit and set the transistor W/L) but there is no option to let the user change the cell layout of for example a digital NAND gate, and build a digital library cell and glue them together and design a digital IC. For IC layout design, Cadence is needed. – Dr. Ehsan Ali Jul 29 '16 at 10:43
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    Might be worth looking at Tanner EDA. I haven't used anything of their tools but they seem to be a small company operating outside the cartel. Unless they have been bought out. –  Jul 29 '16 at 16:53

1 Answers1

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Cadence does not make money with educational licenses, however they support universities because they often cooperate with the industry and train future engineers.

For commercial use license costs depend on the number of licenses you buy and of course can be negotiated. For academic use the license costs are very small and are more like a "handling fee". I live in Europe and the prices for academic software can be found here. This should give you a rough idea what prices to expect.

These academic prices are very low compared to commercial prices, therefore you need to make sure that they are only used for educational purposes. For example you have to keep track of the license usage, the people who have access to the software and keep record of this information for at least five years!

The "University Software Program" is available in many locations, details can be found here

So, keep in mind that you are more an academic partner than a customer (unless you are willing to shell out a few 100k for a single seat license package) and give it another try.

Mario
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  • Virtuoso Advanced Node Option: Free of license charge! I wonder why Cadence itself did not let me know this. I highly appreciate the link that you posted. I will instantly inform my professor to apply for these services. thank you! – Dr. Ehsan Ali Jul 29 '16 at 11:04
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    You will need the IC Package as well. So not completely free of charge. – Mario Jul 29 '16 at 11:10
  • Sadly I can't apply, my country (Thailand) is not listed as a supported country as mention here: http://www.europractice.stfc.ac.uk/membership/eligible_countries.html – Dr. Ehsan Ali Jul 30 '16 at 17:15
  • Did you also check the other programs (second link in my reply)? – Mario Jul 30 '16 at 19:24
  • Yes. My contact with the second program failed miserably, cadence (or at least "Asia Pacific University Software Program" contact person) did not reveal any price quote or any other options to me. That is actually what drove me to post the above question in StachExchange because they did not reveal their price tag after 8 emails. Now look and see how some uninformed moderators closed my question. I am actually shocked to see that for IC design there is no open source software. – Dr. Ehsan Ali Jul 30 '16 at 19:48
  • I would give them a call and ask for a contract. This will include the payment details. – Mario Jul 31 '16 at 08:44
  • Thank you. you can find my contact information by looking at my profile. I looked at yours and it says "Apparently, this user prefers to keep an air of mystery about them." lol – Dr. Ehsan Ali Jul 31 '16 at 09:39
  • I was just informed that I also need another paid program called "Mentor Calibre" for Physical checking of IC. It is exceeding my research budget. I only wonder how people learn these tools? Maybe I should sign up for internship in an IC design company. – Dr. Ehsan Ali Aug 01 '16 at 12:14
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    I don't think that you really need Calibre, you could use Assura instead, although most layout designers prefer Calibre. – Mario Aug 01 '16 at 12:27