Archive for November, 2017
Thursday, November 30th, 2017
Of all the stories associated with Cadence Design Systems, the saga of Lip-Bu Tan might be considered the most unlikely. After all, this is the company that launched one of the most flamboyant CEOs in the history of EDA, followed by one of the most outspoken, then one of the least prepared given his non-tech provenance, and finally one of the most distinctly over-paid in the history of the industry and Silicon Valley.
And all of that even before the corporate cataclysm of 2008. Few at the company in the fall of that year may have noticed the economy teetering on a cliff, because they were too busy tracking unbelievable developments within their own firewall.
On October 15, 2008, a thorough house-cleaning gutted the executive suite: The CEO, all EVPs, and a smattering of others were out, leaving the company leaderless and without an apparent rudder. Instantly the company stock tanked and more than a dozen shareholder lawsuits erupted from that special place from whence such things spring as spontaneously as lawyers after an ambulance.
Into this chaos stepped Lip-Bu Tan. Admittedly, he was no stranger to Cadence having been on the board for several years at that point, but was neither chairman like Stanford’s John Shoven, nor an EDA household name like Berkeley’s Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli.
Also surprising: On paper Tan looked more quintessential VC than quintessential CEO, given his track record founding and managing Walden International’s $2 billion investment portfolio. Nonetheless, it was Lip-Bu Tan’s name that suddenly appeared in the press releases announcing the new Interim CEO.
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Tags: Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, Cadence, Chenming Hu, Denali, ESD Alliance, Forte, Jasper, John Shoven, Lip-bu Tan, Moore's Law, Sigrity, Stanford, Tensilica, UC Berkeley, Walden International
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Thursday, November 16th, 2017
Despite the title of this week’s Computer History Museum evening event – The Future of War – both New York Times cyber-security reporter Nicole Perlroth and Endgame CEO Nathaniel Fick spent a lot more time talking about the past and the present than the future.
That’s because their conversation wasn’t really about war; it was about the lives that you and I are living in the here and now. And those lives – at least the privacy and security concerns associated with those lives – are mind-numbing in today’s Orwellian Digital Age.
So, are you worried about cyber-security?
Are you worried about nefarious entities hacking your email, your social media accounts, your dating history, your purchasing history or credit scores? Worried that they’ve got access to your phone, your laptop, your watch, your Alexa, your TV, refrigerator, light bulbs or thermostat? Worried that they’ve infiltrated your bank, your doctor, your medical insurance provider? That they’ve cyber-attacked your power grid, regional emergency response capabilities, state and national legislatures, your federal government, your Army, Navy, CIA or FBI? Even your elections?
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Tags: China, Computer History Museum, cyber-security, Endgame, Future of War, Nathaniel Fick, New York Times, Nicole Perlroth, North Korea, Russia, St. Augustine
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Thursday, November 2nd, 2017
ICScape is both an EDA company and an analog IP provider. The company’s EDA tools “cover the complete AMS design flow”, its SoC design tools are “point solutions for design closure”, and the ICScape IP catalog includes a variety of analog IPs.
Jason Xing is CEO of ICScape. Prior to co-founding the company in 2005, he was at Sun Microsystems for 7 years. Xing has two PhDs, in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and in Mathematics from the University of Louisiana. Xing is an accomplished technologist, and a well-informed observer of the semiconductor industry.
We spoke last week about his company and the future of the technology wherein he positions his offerings.
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Tags: HiSilicon, Hynex, ICScape, Jason Xing, Legend Designs Systems, LG, Marvel, Samsung, Tsinghua University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Louisiana
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Thursday, November 2nd, 2017
Memory technologies are changing, per Weebit Nano CEO Coby Hanoch. In a recent phone call he said, “The current technologies, Flash and so on, have been around for a long time and are starting to hit the wall, which is why we’re seeing people going to things like 3D memories.
“At Weebit, however, we are focusing on Resistive RAM – developing the technology with help from Leti Labs in Grenoble, France. With the assistance of Leti, we have been able to develop a 4k-bit memory array on 300-nanometer wafers.
“Now we are working to achieve our goal of 40 nanometers before the end of the year. We expect to have single cells at 40 nanometers very soon, and will work on 4k-bit arrays immediately after that.”
Weebit Nano is not the only company pursuing new, alternative options for memory.
Per Hanoch: “There are actually quite a few players in this market – including big companies like Intel and Samsung – all working on different types of technology, because not everyone agrees as which technology will be the future of memory.
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Tags: Coby Hanoch, David Perlmutter, EDAcon Partners, Jasper, Leti Labs, memristor, ReRAM, Resistive random-access memory, Rice University, SiOx, Verisity, Weebit Nano
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