Archive for October, 2013
Thursday, October 31st, 2013
[Editor’s Note: An abbreviated version of this article first appeared on-line on in July 2001, and again in May 2004 when Gary Smith was engaged to be married to Verisity’s Lori Kate Calise.]
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Starting and ending with the Tao is pretty enigmatic stuff when, in the middle of the stream, you find a bass-toting, black-leather-clad blues musician fresh out of the Naval Academy living in a shack in the midst of Silicon Valley. That pretty much summarizes Gary Smith for those who know him. For those who don’t, to quote from an introduction to Gary I heard at a panel last year where he was acting as moderator: “If anyone in this room doesn’t know who Gary Smith is, they don’t belong in this room.”
For a number of years, Gary Smith has been the single most important prognosticator in EDA. The industry listens to Gary, at DAC and a thousand other venues over the course of the year. They bank on his annual numbers reporting on the health of the industry. They pin his EDA Landscape poster up on the wall to keep track of which companies are which in the here today/acquired tomorrow world of EDA. They take their business plans and nascent product ideas to him and hope for his blessings. They quote him. They court him. They keep him busy, and apparently he loves it – taking all of the adulation in stride with a smile and a nod, which is what you would expect from a guy who takes Eastern philosophies seriously and incorporates them into his mindset and lifestyle.
The rest of Gary’s story is as follows. However, if you believe as Gary does that less is more, you needn’t read on. Based on what you’ve read, you already know him.
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Tags: ARM, Avanti, Cadence, DAC, Daisy-Mentor-Valid, Dataquest, EDA, ES2, Fairchild, Full Disclosures, Gary Smith, GarySmithonEDA, IMI, Lori Kate Smith, LSI, Magma, Mentor Graphics, Monterey, National Electric, Plessy, Sequence, Signetics, Synopsys, Tao, Telmos, TI, U.S. Naval Academy
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Thursday, October 24th, 2013
If you are someone who does formal verification and is looking for a chance to talk over the challenges with others who do similar work, Oski Technology has something that may be of interest to you. Starting this month in Silicon Valley, the company is kicking off its Oski Decoding Formal Club. The inaugural meeting took place at the Computer History Museum on October 10th, and was lead by company CEO Vigyan Singhal.
Over lunch, he presented a 45-minute overview titled, “Using Bounded Proofs in Formal Sign-off.” Singhal noted during his talk that it’s the reality today that formal is expensive and returns “low bang for the bucks.” He insisted, however, that if there were places to learn more about how to apply formal verification, and how to build a productive formal team, the technology would be more widely applied and its destiny more quickly fulfilled as an extremely effective technique for use end-to-end throughout the design process.
Following Singhal’s presentation, the 20+ people in attendance (representing 10 companies) were each given time in a relaxed, roundtable environment to share their experiences and/or frustrations with formal. The companies included Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, HiSilicon, Memoir Systems, Microsoft, Nvidia, Palo Alto Networks, Qualcomm, and a startup. In other words, companies both big and small were represented and the resulting conversation was very interesting. It was clear as the talking stick was handed around, that some practitioners were very confident and sure of themselves, while others were relieved to know they’re not the only ones who struggle with formal.
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Tags: Oski Decoding Formal Club, Oski Technology, Vigyan Singhal
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Wednesday, October 16th, 2013
Several years ago, after a phone briefing about a new product launch, I received a call back from the PR counsel who had organized the meeting. She asked me if I had all the info I needed regarding the product and the company. I said yes, and offered a minor apology for asking too many pointed questions of the marketing manager during the interview.
She said, “Oh, that’s okay. Talking to you is like talking to Aart de Geus. It’s clear you both think you’re the smartest guy in the room.”
That comment has come to mind multiple times since then, for two reasons. One, you never really know what impression you leave with people until it comes out at some capricious moment. And two, Aart de Geus isn’t the smartest guy in the room, just because he thinks so. He’s the smartest guy in the room, because he really is the smartest guy in the room.
That’s particularly applicable today with the EDAC event celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the EDA industry about to commence this evening in Silicon Valley. Per the Consortium, a plethora of industry luminaries will be in attendance. Per this writer, none will be more luminary than Dr. de Geus. If you’re reading this, you’re probably pretty well versed in both the history of EDA and the history of Aart de Geus. Nonetheless, here’s the latter in a nutshell.
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Tags: Aart de Geus, Computer History Museum, DAC, Davos, Deirdre Hanford, EDA Consortium, Electronic Design Automation, EPFL, FSA, GE, Harris Semiconductor, Harvey Jones, IEEE, Karen Bartleson, Legally Blue, Ron Rohrer, SMU, Synopsys, Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship
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Thursday, October 10th, 2013
Given that history and innovation are being featured here in this space this week, it’s only appropriate to highlight the fact that EDAC is hosting a very interesting event related to history and innovation in Silicon Valley next week.
On Wednesday, October 16th, those who have made massive contributions to the EDA industry will be highlighted and celebrated at a black-tie optional dinner at the Computer History Museum. If you’re interested in rubbing elbows with the powerful and prolific, you should be going to this event. If you want a chance to bid at auction for lunch with today’s corporate leaders in EDA, you should be going to this event. If you think said corporate leaders make enough money to pay for your lunch, rather than vice versa, you should still be going to this event.
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Tags: Aart de Geus, Alan Naumann, Bernie Aronson, Bob Brayton, Bob Gardner, Chenming Hu, Cooley, Dave Burow, Dave Millman, Dean Drako, Ed Cheng, Ernie Kuh, Jack Harding, Jacques Benkoski, Jim Hogan, Jim Solomon, Joe Costello, John Eurich, John Kibarian, John Sanguinetti, Kathryn Kranen, Lip-bu Tan, Penny Herscher, Randy Bryant, Raul Composano, Ravi Subramanian, Rick Carlson, Sanjay Srivastava, Scott Sandler, Simon Segars, Soha Hassoun, Wally Rhines
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Thursday, October 10th, 2013
Bill Martin, E-System Design President & VP of Engineering, sent the following essay detailing 4 Generations in the History of Electronics, including the Last/Lost Generation …
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“If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
Isaac Newton, 5 February 16761
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1st Generation (1940-1960s): Vacuum tubes and possibilities
The start of the electrical computer age produced first generation electrical computers that required large rooms to contain them. These computers were large, heavy, power-consuming devices that had poor reliability (mean time between failures, MTBF): nothing like today’s handheld consumer devices that are more powerful, fit in your pocket, easily connect wirelessly to networks and can last 4+ hours on a single charge.
A few smart engineers realized that larger systems could not be built unless higher levels of integration were possible, helping to improve MTBF, size, weight, power and cost: a recurring theme for each generation that followed.
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Tags: 3D technologies, Bill Martin, David Cook, E-System Design, Jack Kilby, Ki Jin Han, LSI Logic, Madhavan Swaminathan, Mentor Graphics, Robert Noyce, Synopsys, Veloce2, VLSI Technology
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Thursday, October 10th, 2013
Was just trying to get downtown in time for happy hour at my favorite wine bar tonight, when what should I stumble upon but the ribbon cutting for Draper University.
 The new darling of downtown San Mateo, this one-off school of entrepreneurialism is housed in the iconic Ben Franklin Hotel, which has stood as art-deco sentinel over the historic center of San Mateo for nine decades. Now re-painted, spruced-up, and re-named Draper U, the folks founding this trendy school have closed the entire block of 3rd Avenue this evening in order to celebrate their launch.
No matter that the 3rd Ave Sports Bar, Kaffeehaus, or Masu Japanese Bistro – not to mention the original Amicia’s Pizza – might want to draw in their own Thursday evening foot traffic, Draper University is King of the Hill here this evening. A way-hip band blares away mid-block to pump up the crowd, enormous oversized beach balls roll up and down the suddenly-pedestrian-only street, and a 2-story climbing tower can be spotted above the noisy, shifting crowds.
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Thursday, October 3rd, 2013
There are a lot of things about life in the 21st century that are annoying, things related to our environment being super-saturated with technology. Electronic stuff around the house that never goes dark so you have to cover them with an old sock to get some shut-eye; wireless devices that send out vibes that tingle in your hands and wrists when they power up; kids who respond to text messages but not voice, kids who respond to voice messages but not text; and the pile of old cellphones and PDAs holed up in a dark corner of that drawer in the kitchen.
For the sake of this blog post, however, a specific bucket of annoying has been chosen for special shout out. Listed in no particular order, all of them show up with sufficient frequency to make you wonder if we’re really making progress here.
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Tags: Bill Gates, dongles, Douglas Adams, FasTrak, passwords, smartphones, Steve Jobs
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