Bob Smith, Executive DirectorBob Smith is Executive Director of the ESD Alliance responsible for its management and operations. Previously, Bob was senior vice president of Marketing and Business Development at Uniquify, responsible for brand development, positioning, strategy and business development activities. Bob began his career in high tech as an analog design engineer working at Hewlett Packard. Since then, he has spent more than 30 years in various roles in marketing, business development and executive management primarily working with startup and early stage companies. These companies include IKOS Systems, Synopsys, LogicVision, and Magma Design Automation. He was a member of the IPO teams that took Synopsys public in 1992 and Magma public in 2001. Bob received his BSEE from U.C. Davis and his MSEE from Stanford University.
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Bob Smith, Executive DirectorBob Smith is Executive Director of the ESD Alliance responsible for its management and operations. Previously, Bob was senior vice president of Marketing and Business Development at Uniquify, responsible for brand development, positioning, strategy and business development activities. Bob began his
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Now’s the Time to Join the ESD Alliance
September 1st, 2022 by Bob Smith, Executive Director
Summer’s almost over, school’s back in session and it’s time to look forward. It’s an even better time to join the ESD Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community. The reasons for joining are numerous.
Much of the ESD Alliance member value is derived from the various technical- and business-focused committees. With committee membership consisting of subject matter experts in our member companies, these groups address key areas of common concern for our industry. 
One such area is the quarterly SEMI Electronic Design Market Data (EDMD) report, a resource that is part of the Market Information initiative. Public and private EDA, semiconductor IP and services companies provide detailed revenue data in confidence to an independent auditing firm. The aggregated data is reported by detailed product categories and geographic regions on a quarterly basis. Each report includes tables and graphs with current and recent revenue and employment trends by quarter, allowing companies to review trends affecting their specific product segments.
The increasingly important Risk Management initiative includes SEMI’s Washington, D.C. policy and advocacy office, representing all member companies with a unified voice on export licensing and compliance issues. We also help to train future government leaders in the semiconductor design ecosystem to enable more educated future decisions affecting the industry.
The License Management and Anti-Piracy Committee reviews third-party licensing management software used by member companies for issues, updates and best practices. A significant ongoing effort is the SEMI Server Certification Protocol (SSCP), a years-long joint development effort led by the ESD Alliance with committee members Cadence, Siemens EDA and Synopsys (see my previous blog post for details). The SSCP addresses software piracy by providing a means to assure that licenses are issued only by authorized servers, reducing software piracy and benefitting both software vendors and customers.
The Operating System (OS) Interoperability Committee, under the Growth and Efficiency initiative, provides a forum for vendors to determine a core set of supported operating systems, simplifying and reducing development and support costs for vendors and customers. The committee meets with OS vendors to understand their future support plans and uses that information to guide vendors and customers on future OS decisions by publishing an annual roadmap.
Regular in-person educational events and networking sessions are an integral part of our Events and Education activities. While the pandemic restricted the in-person opportunities, the committee conducted several virtual events featuring leaders and executives from leading companies in our ecosystem. We are starting to return to in-person events that include opportunities for informal meetings and discussions with industry leaders and peers.
The ESD Alliance annual Phil Kaufman Award for Distinguished Contributions to Electronic System Design is co-sponsored with the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA). The 2021 recipient was Dr. Anirudh Devgan, honored at an award presentation and dinner in May. The 2022 recipient will be announced soon. In addition, the Phil Kaufman Hall of Fame recognizes individuals who made significant contributions to our industry but died before they were acknowledged with the Phil Kaufman Award. This year’s inductees will also be announced soon.
Perhaps most important, the ESD Alliance serves as the voice of the system design ecosystem. Shouldn’t your company be part of the ESD Alliance? Visit the ESD Alliance website to learn more about us. Or contact me at bsmith@semi.org if you have questions.
Engage with the ESD Alliance at:
Website: www.esd-alliance.org
ESD Alliance Bridging the Frontier blog
Twitter: @ESDAlliance
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