This year, the ESD Alliance fully embraced all that the electronic system design ecosystem has to offer with a host of absorbing networking events, participation at industry events and so much more.

Andrzej J. Strojwas, Keithley professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, was feted at the Phil Kaufman Award dinner and ceremony in late January, a great way to kick-off the year.

Dr. Andrzej J. Strojwas, Keithley professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, accepts the Kaufman Award from Shishpal Rawat, IEEE-CEDA president (at left), and Grant Pierce, chairman of the ESD Alliance board and CEO of Sonics.

However, our first event of 2017 was a panel on RISC-V, a captivating discussion on the possibilities of an open source processor. It was bookended two weeks ago with a panel on cognitive computing at San Jose State University, both organized and moderated by Jim Hogan of Vista Ventures. That evening closed out our 2017 events calendar. We are grateful to Jim for his continued support of the ESD Alliance and for bringing to the forefront new topics our community wants to learn about.

The CEO Outlook in April was deemed a success and we’ve been encouraged to do it again in 2018. Another successful evening was “Empowering Leadership with WIT and WISDOM” co-hosted by ANSYS, the ESD Alliance and SEMI. Julie Rogers, our director of marketing and operations, wrote a recent blog about it in this space.

Photos of all the 2017 events are found on the ESD Alliance website at: www.esd-alliance.org

We had plenty of news on the member front. Grant A. Pierce, CEO of Sonics, was elected by the Board of Directors to serve as its chairman, while Mentor was acquired by Siemens, and Runtime became part of Altair. Later in the year, Mentor, a Siemens Business, acquired Solido. We welcomed several new member companies this year, including CAST, EDDR Software, Helic and SoC Solutions, now part of Silvaco.

(more…)

A large and enthusiastic crowd greeted five high-powered women panelists as they took the stage two weeks ago to talk about “Empowering Leadership with WIT and WISDOM” with Ann Steffora Mutschler of Semiconductor Engineering. The memorable evening was co-hosted by ANSYS, the ESD Alliance and SEMI at SEMI’s new headquarters in Milpitas, Calif.

Ajit Manocha, SEMI’s president and CEO, offered a welcome and conveyed the organization’s commitment to advancement in the workplace as attendees began settling in. He suggested that a better title for the evening would be “WIT and WISDOM with Women in the Workplace,” that got plenty of smiles and heads nodding in agreement.

At the WIT and Wisdom panel (standing from left to right): Amita Dharwan, Annapoorna Krishnaswamy, Renuka Vankuri, Neela Kulkarni, Panelist Indira Joshi, Vic Kulkarni, Moderator Ann Steffora Mutschler, Panelist Sundari Mitra, Julie Rogers and Panelist Mona Sabet. Kneeling from left to right: Dhrithi Bankuru, Emine Bostanci and Jason Woo.

I’m sure audience members, a mix of men and women, will take heed to the pearls of wisdom from the empowering 90 minute-long discussion. Ann asked each panelist to focus on an area, from personal branding and leadership to negotiation, networking and mentoring. She captured valuable insights each of the women made in a great wrap-up article that includes photos of the evening. It can be found at: http://bit.ly/2Apad0C. A recording of the panel is posted on the ESD Alliance website, along with additional photos, at: http://bit.ly/2jc5ffQ.
(more…)