Archive for April, 2012
Thursday, April 26th, 2012
Here in Silicon Valley, there’s a small company that should be on your radar. Founded in 2003 as a consulting service, the company discovered their solutions – developed to address customers’ verification problems – had become sufficiently robust to be commercialized. Over time, those solutions proved so successful that Breker Verification Solutions morphed into a 100-percent product company.
No longer a consultancy, Breker is thriving today, actively hiring with multiple openings posted on their website. and just this week named well-known EDA veteran Tom Anderson as Vice President of Marketing. I had a chance to speak by phone this morning with Tom Breker, CEO Adnan Hamid, and company CFO Maheen Hamid.
Adnan addressed the challenge of morphing from consultancy to product company: “As we have figured out how to do this, we feel we have done it with style. But still it’s true, this is a very hard path.”
Tom added, “We are relatively small, but already with people in Europe, India, and the U.S., and we have plans to grow over 2012 – looking for good AEs and hiring in R&D to implement the ideas customers constantly come up with. Our momentum is building as we cast a wide net for great employees, and work to serve our customers even more. So that’s the top-level view of company.”
(more…)
Tags: Adnan Hamid, Breker, Breker Verification Solutions, Destructive testing, Maheen Hamid, SOC verification, Tom Anderson
1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
When you think of Forte, think of the shopping mall – because just as Macy’s and Nordstrom’s are anchor tenants in your local mall, Forte Design Systems is the anchor tenant in the ESL mall.
 Also when you think of Forte, think of Brett Cline. Brett’s been the face of the company for many a year, and continues to address with palpable enthusiasm the past, present, and future of everything having to do with the ESL – Forte and the system-level design shopping mall within which the company functions.
Last month, here in What Would Joe Do, Calypto had center stage speaking about their recent acquisition of the Catapult C high-level synthesis tool from Mentor Graphics.
This month, Forte has center stage by way of Brett’s response to Calypto. When we spoke by phone this week, Brett began by countering Calypto VP Shawn McCloud’s comment that Forte is in trouble.
(more…)
Tags: Brett Cline, Cadence, Calypto, ESL, Forte, Forte Design Systems, Mentor Graphics
No Comments »
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
There’s good news and bad news, in my opinion, with regards to Rajeev Madhavan, founder and CEO of Magma Design Automation, a company that was acquired by Synopsys on February 22, 2012.
The good news it that Rajeev is available to the press for candid interviews like the one included below. The bad news is Rajeev is not going to be part of the EDA landscape as he explores various options for the next phase of his life – and that means the industry will be just that much less interesting, at least for a while.
We spoke by phone in late February.
***********************
Peggy: Hey, Rajeev, how are you doing?
Rajeev: I’m doing pretty much okay as I think about what’s next. I’ve got opportunities, and I’ve got other interests I can now pursue – most people rarely get this kind of opportunity in life, so I’m grateful.
(more…)
Tags: Aart de Geus, Andy Bechtolsheim, Cadence, EDA, Intel, M&A, Magma, Magma Design Automation, Mentor Graphics, Rajeev Madhavan, Synopsys, TSMC, Wally Rhines, Wind River
1 Comment »
Thursday, April 19th, 2012
If you’re interested in start-ups, if you think you’ve got what it takes to plunge in and do the deed, the EDA Consortium has something you’re going to want to attend.
Starting on May 31st – that’s in about 5 weeks – EDAC will be offering a series of evening discussions about various “concepts and best practices for emerging companies.”
 The series is going to be hosted by long-time EDA player, Jim Hogan. And as you all know, what Jim Hogan doesn’t know about EDA, start-ups, venture capital, and everything in between, simply isn’t worth knowing – so you’re sure to be in the best of hands with Jim moderating these meetings.
Of course, you don’t just have to be a new, up-and-coming entrepreneur to plan to benefit from the series, because EDAC says: “the content is geared to founders and executives of software, systems, and semiconductor companies, as well as others interested in getting a birds-eye view of what companies face at the various stages of success.”
(more…)
Tags: ChipEstimate.com, Dean Drako, EDA Consortium, EDA Emerging Companies Series, EDAC, Georgia Marzalek, Gloria Nichols, Jim Hogan, Ravi Subramanian, Silicon Valley Bank, Steve Pollock
No Comments »
Sunday, April 15th, 2012
Open Virtual Platforms are an idea whose time has arrived. That is, if you understand what they are. Certainly, if you’re reading this blog, you know what a virtual platform is.
“Platform virtual machines are software packages that emulate the whole physical computer machine, often giving multiple virtual machines on one physical platform.”
For additional clarity, check it out on Wikipedia, paying particular attention to the incredibly dense/complex table found there that attempts to catalog various virtual platforms, their origins, supporting organizations, and features.
************************
Imperas & Open Virtual Platforms
So, if that’s what virtual platforms are, then what are Open Virtual Platforms, OVPs?
Imperas – an enterprise founded in Silicon Valley in 2008 – would like you to understand and use OVPs. To do that, they are sponsoring a portal-based community called Open Virtual Platforms – a resource designed to help chip developers have access to various open source virtual platforms, or models, of various commonly used hardware platforms endemic to the embedded systems world.
(more…)
Tags: AMD, ARM, emulator, Freescale, Imperas, Intel, KVM, Larry Lapides, MIPS, Open Virtual Platform, Oracle, OVP, PalmPilot, Renases, Simon Davidmann, Synopsys, virtual machine, virtual platform, virtualization, VMware, Xilinx
No Comments »
Friday, April 6th, 2012
It’s April 2012, and both spring and 3D-ICs are in the air. But if Spring means April showers and May flowers, what do 3D-ICs mean?
Well, if you were at EDPS in Seaside this morning, at the Monterey Beach Resort, you would have heard from a host of speakers all addressing the April showers and May flowers of 3D-ICs. The session was organized and well moderated by eda2asic’s Herb Reiter.
 * Showers –
Heat … 3D-ICs kick up a lot of thermal issues between the layers.
* Flowers –
Multiple solutions are under consideration for heat. If you’re rich like IBM, you talk about micro-channels where cooling waters will flow. If you’re not rich – like everybody else – you don’t yet know what to do to sink that heat off-chip and out of harm’s way. Micro channels are too exotic, so stay tuned as solutions are sought out and implemented.
* Showers –
EDA Flow … it’s not quite here, according to many, even though the current tools may be good enough for some. Most believe there are larger needs that should be met.
(more…)
Tags: 3D-ICs, eda2asic, EDPS, Herb Reiter
No Comments »
|
