Delivering a Better Support Experience for IP Customers

by Meredith Lucky, VP of Sales & Support, CAST

Has this happened to you? You decide to include third-party commercial IP cores to reduce risk and time to market. You spend months defining requirements, researching available IP, evaluating vendors, then cycling through technical questions and licensing options until you finally select and license the IP core that seems best for your project. You expect to drop the IP into your design, compile, test and hit your project milestones.

But things might not go as easily as expected. Perhaps you have an issue compiling the design, or the testing results don’t make sense. So, you email the IP supplier’s help desk hoping for a quick resolution, while your development work is partially on hold until you get a satisfying answer.

All support systems initially rely on the problem being routed to the appropriate engineer to correctly interpret the issue. The “appropriate” engineer is critical, as not every engineer can properly assess a given issue in a timely manner. What happens after that person receives your issue can vary widely among IP providers.

Creating A Better Support Experience

Refined over three decades, we believe the technical support customers get from CAST is among the best in the industry.

Unlike huge, multi-level, less-personal organizations, CAST operates with a nearly flat structure of rapid-response professionals backed by tightly coupled application domain experts who actually develop our IP cores. We’ve made that a global team, so no matter where or when you need help, someone is available to assist.

CAST’s state-of-the-art ticketing system helps us track every issue from start to finish. This software facilitates clear communication between you and our engineers until ultimate resolution. 

Deep design familiarity and superb documentation are further keys to CAST’s better support. The hundreds of CAST customers before you make it probable that someone has already raised your same question. Determining this and having the answer right at hand gets you moving again quickly. While we would never just tell you to “RTFM” (read the fine manual), our replies to functionality questions frequently point to specific locations in our documentation. Through stringent internal standards and continuous effort, CAST documentation is, we believe, the gold standard in the industry, providing detailed information on every core’s IOs, functionality, and provided testbenches.

Support scope also matters. About half our support questions are related to the tools our customers use rather than the IP cores themselves. We’re not contractually obligated to support these tools, but do so to help our customers succeed. Our engineers are experienced with all major EDA tools for ASIC and FPGA design, often offering more practical help than the tool vendors themselves.
Does all this work? Let’s take a look at some statistics from our past year of Support cases.

Real-World Support Results

On average, it takes just 1 hour and 35 minutes for a CAST support request to be reviewed and assigned to the appropriate expert. Within another 2 hours, the request is with the engineer best suited to resolve it. 

The “best suited” engineer receiving your support issue is typically the actual core developer, as all of our original core developers are available to aid in support and even jump on a call with you if needed. This is not just for Tier-1 customers but for every CAST customer. 

I’m proud to say that our average time from request submission to initial response is just under 15 hours. This first response often resolves the issue. If not, it starts a dialogue that helps us diagnose and address the problem. The resolution time varies depending on the complexity of the issue, but our company’s focus on customer support means that we feel your urgency.

Choose IP that Comes with Better Support

Our philosophy on IP support is simple: we strive to make all our customers successful and to handle every customer request with respect and urgency. It’s no surprise that over 50% of CAST’s sales come from repeat customers. 

While the quality of our IP cores is of course, critical, our customers know that the superior support we provide can make all the difference. Wouldn’t you like to have that level of support for your next project?