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New Tool Allows Chip Development Managers to “Benchmark” their Project Plans

Cupertino, Calif., 2006 November 30

Numetrics Management Systems, Inc., the leading provider of project planning tools to the semiconductor industry, announced a new risk analysis capability that quantitatively determines the likelihood that an IC project’s development schedule can be achieved. Built into NMX Project Planner, Risk Analyzer leverages Numetrics’ IC Industry Database, which contains over a thousand benchmarked integrated circuit (IC) projects and yields a statistically valid baseline for generating quantitative risk analyses.

“Managers no longer have to rely on subjective ‘guesstimates’ when setting schedule targets,” said Ron Collett, president of Numetrics Management Systems. “By combining the output of Risk Analyzer with their intuition and experience, project managers, program managers and product managers get the best of all worlds and can more effectively determine whether project goals are realistic.” The risk analysis module is the only tool that uses the complexity of the chip and the productivity of the team to quantify the schedule risk of an IC project. The resulting accuracy and reliability is a major leap forward for semiconductor organizations targeting best-in-class schedule predictability.

Risk Analyzer

Risk Analyzer uses a unique approach in quantifying risk. Instead of relying on the manager to subjectively quantify schedule risk factors, the tool calculates the target chip’s design complexity using Numetrics’ patented design complexity calculation technology and simultaneously analyzes both the manpower and time budgeted to the project. With that information, it calculates the productivity assumed, or implied, in the project plan and compares it against both the industry norm and that particular organization’s past performance. The comparison enables managers to quickly assess whether the schedule is realistic-again, given the complexity of the design and the manpower and time budgeted. Figure 1 illustrates an example.

Figure 1. The curve shows the IC development productivity that can be expected for IC teams of different sizes. The target project (shown as a triangle) is in its planning phase and is assuming a productivity—calculated by Risk Analyzer the project’s plan—that is 4.5 times higher than the norm for teams of that size. It’s a lofty goal that’s unlikely to be achieved, which makes the risk of schedule miss very high.

Risk Analyzer operates by calculating not only the development productivity implied in the project plan, but also the implied development throughput. It calculates the development throughput that the project team must achieve to meet its target schedule. Development throughput is the output rate of the development team—i.e. how much design the development team outputs per week. Managers can immediately observe if the implied throughput in the project plan is significantly greater than either the industry norm or that organization’s past performance. Figure 2 provides an example.

Figure 2. The curve shows the IC development throughput that can be expected for IC teams of different sizes. The target project (shown as a triangle) is in its planning phase and is assuming a throughput—calculated by Risk Analyzer from the project’s plan—that is 6 times higher than the norm for teams of that size. It’s a goal that’s nearly impossible to achieve and, therefore, the risk of schedule miss is very high.

With Risk Analyzer, managers get reliable estimates of both the productivity and throughput that the team must achieve in order to meet schedule targets. Both of these have direct bearing on the management strategy chosen for the project, which includes factors such as incentives, frequency of design reviews, outsourcing, managing spec creep and overtime. The manager’s ultimate goal is to achieve maximum throughput, which can be accomplished only by raising productivity, increasing staffing level and/or working longer hours. Thus, Risk Analyzer provides managers with insight on how much motivation the team needs in order to achieve the requisite levels of productivity and throughput, as well as how much, if any, additional staffing is needed on the project.

Risk Analyzer also enables managers to quickly evaluate other important underlying assumptions in the project plan and compare them with historical performance and industry norms for that particular kind of chip. These include things such as the spin count, cycle times and durations between important project milestones that are standard for that particular kind of chip. In sum, the tool automatically produces Risk Report Sets of all metrics needed to rigorously assess a project plan, enabling managers to run risk analyses based on a full range of project scenarios.

Project Risk Factors

With Risk Analyzer, managers can also record and update the primary risk factors affecting their projects Riazfactors that could lead to schedule slip or the need for more resources—such as unstable specs, new manufacturing processes, untested libraries or unproven third-party IP. This capability provides a simple and powerful way to document and communicate each risk associated with a project, its potential impact, and the action planned to mitigate the risk.

約ニューメトリクス

Numetrics Management Systems, Inc. provides enterprise software and services for product development lifecycle management (NMX) to electronics companies throughout the world. In use in leading semiconductor and systems manufacturers, its solutions incorporate proprietary, advanced technologies tailored to integrated circuit (IC) development that dramatically improve a company’s project and portfolio planning capabilities. The company is headquartered at 20863 Stevens Creek Boulevard, Suite 510, Cupertino, CA 95014. Phone: (408) 351-5800. Fax: (408) 351-5850. E-mail: info@numetrics.com. Web site: www.numetrics.com