Posts Tagged ‘Lip-bu Tan’
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, September 28th, 2017
Vic Kulkarni is well-known in the EDA community as co-Founder, CEO and President of Sequence Design from 1995 until the company merged with Apache in 2009, which in turn was acquired by ANSYS in 2011. Kulkarni is now VP and Chief Strategist in the Office of CTO for the Semiconductor Business Unit at ANSYS.
There is little Kulkarni has not seen in his 30+ years in Silicon Valley. Although our conversation here mostly highlights current successes at ANSYS, it’s clear he continues to be wildly enthused about the broader promises of technology and the exciting efforts underway to create tools and strategies to bring those promises to fruition. Vik Kulkarni’s enthusiasm is the kind of thing that continues to make this industry so vibrant, and makes careers herein appealing for the next generation of engineers.
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Tags: Aart de Geus, Ansys, Apache, ARM, Bollywood, Cadence, DAC, ESD Alliance, John Lee, Lip-bu Tan, Mentor Graphics, Moore's Law, More than Moore, NVIDIA, Sequence Design, Synopsys, TSMC, Vik Kulkarni, Wally Rhines
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Thursday, March 23rd, 2017
Something historic and poignant is taking place on Thursday, April 6th, that should be of interest to absolutely everyone in the EDA and IP communities. The four most powerful men in these two industries will be on stage for an ESD Alliance panel discussion led by Semiconductor Engineering’s Ed Sperling.
The four panelists include Synopsys Chairman & CEO Aart de Geus, Cadence President & CEO Lip-Bu Tan, Mentor Graphics Chairman & CEO Wally Rhines, and ARM CEO Simon Segars.
The April 6th event will be historic because these Big Four unequivocally define EDA and IP – just as Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and Crocker defined Railroads in the West – and it’ll be poignant because you’ll never see them together again. Too many changes ahead.
Of course, the ESDA panel will also be whimsical: You’ll know no more about these CEOs and their companies at the end of the evening than you knew when you first arrived. That doesn’t mean the evening won’t be entertaining.
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Tags: Aart de Geus, Abu Dhabi, ARM, Brexit, Cadence, Charles Crocker, China, Collis P. Huntington, Ed Sperling, EDA, EDA 360, Egypt, ESD Allicance, Germany, GlobalFoundries, India, Japan, Leland Stanford, Lip-bu Tan, Mark Hopkins, Mentor Graphics, Pakistan, Russia, Saudia Arabia, Semiconductor Engineering, Siemens, Simon Segars, SoftBank, Synopsys, Taiwan, TSMC, U.S., UK, Wally Rhines
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Thursday, January 26th, 2017
If you were to attend only one Kaufman Award dinner throughout your career, tonight’s might have been the right choice: a lovely meal in downtown Silicon Valley, and presentations full of warmth, respect, humor and clear-eyed admissions, all in honor of CMU’s Dr. Andrzej Strojwas, long-time CTO at PDF Solutions.
Having interviewed Prof. Strojwas some months ago when he was first named the 2016 Kaufman Award winner, and knowing the event was in the capable hands of the ESD Alliance, this evening’s ambiance was not a complete surprise. But the display of emotion and palpable affection with which Dr. Strojwas is held by colleagues and family was almost mesmerizing.
In fact, as PDF CEO John Kibarian hit his stride at the podium, detailing the lifetime of achievements and leadership at the core of Dr. Strojwas’ award commendation, there could be no looking away.
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Tags: 2016 Phil Kaufman Award, Aart de Geus, Andrzej Strojwas, Carnegie Mellon, ESD Alliance, IEEE CEDA, John Kibarian, Lip-bu Tan, Lucio Lanza, PDF Solutions, Shishpal Rawat, Steve Director, Wojciech Maly
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Thursday, October 6th, 2016
In July 2008 and with much fanfare, Cadence declared its intention to purchase Mentor Graphics. The Cadence executive team was so confident the purchase would go through, then-CFO Bill Porter declared during an analysts’ call at the time: This acquisition is going to happen, Mentor needs us. Accept it and move on.
Well, people did move on. By September 2008, Cadence CEO Mike Fister, CFO Porter and the entire executive team had indeed moved on. CDNS Board member Lip-Bu Tan was named acting CEO and here, 8 years later, he continues to serve in that role.
* Results: Mentor stock in May 2008 was at about $11.50/share, by June 2008 it had moved to $16, by October 2008 it was down to less than $8, and by March 2009 was barely above $4. Ouch.
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Tags: Bill Porter, Cadence, Carl Icahn, Elliott Associates, Lip-bu Tan, Mentor Graphics, Mike Fister, Wally Rhines
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Thursday, April 7th, 2016
Several weeks ago, before the EDA Consortium was re-branded as the ESD Alliance, I had a chance to speak by phone with Bob Smith, Executive Director of the organization. I started by asking what concerned him the most about the re-launch. Bob was too optimistic to pick up on that negative note.
Instead he said, “It looks like we’re going to have a really good turnout for our event next week on March 30th, with well over 100 people expected. We are billing the evening as 90-percent social and only 10-percent business. I’ll speak for about 5 minutes and no longer, introducing the new name for EDAC.
“Mostly we want to have a get-together where people who haven’t seen each for a long time can enjoy catching up. We honestly hope that people will just have a good time. Also, it’s great that a number of the board members will be there.”
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Tags: Aart de Geus, Bob Smith, EDA Consortium, ESD Alliance, Grant Pierce, Lip-bu Tan, Simon Segars, Wally Rhines
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Thursday, March 31st, 2016
As much as the energetic re-branding of the EDA Consortium is to be admired, the name of the new organization is causing distress: If you want to find out more about the newly launched ESD Alliance, your online search will be fraught with angst. Why?
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Tags: Aart de Geus, Dean Drako, EDA Consortium, EDAC, Edsa Ford, Edsel Ford, ESD Alliance, ESDA, Grant Pierce, John Kibarian, Lip-bu Tan, Simon Segars, Wally Rhines
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Wednesday, January 20th, 2016
Just short of 2 years ago, the EDA press corps sat in a room in the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara and enjoyed a face-to-face with Cadence CEO Lip-Bu Tan. A full report of that conversation is available here, but it is the closing segment of the report that informs this blog:
Finally, the Cadence PR machine closed out the hour by making sure the Press Corps was privy to the human side of CEO Tan. It would appear his wife does not make the tech-product purchasing decisions at home as much as do the two boys. Tan said that his two CMU-educated engineer sons are smart and savvy, and had advised him early on to invest in both Netflix and Tesla. Tan humbly acknowledged that he had, unfortunately, ignored those two pieces of advice and hence had lost out on the opportunity to win big in both movies and EVs.
So, here’s the hypothetical: Given Lip-Bu Tan’s involvement with a $2 billion investment group – efforts interleaved with his responsibilities as Cadence CEO – wouldn’t it have been wise to harvest stock tips from his press meeting back in March 2014 in Santa Clara?
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Tags: Ansys, ARM, Cadence, GoPro, Lip-bu Tan, Mentor Graphics, Netflix, PDF Solutions, Synopsys, Tesla
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Thursday, November 12th, 2015
Joyful relief probably best describes this evening’s event at the Fourth Street Summit Center in San Jose where the glitterati of EDA gathered to honor Mentor CEO Wally Rhines with a long-overdue CEDA/EDAC-sponsored Kaufman Award. Joyful relief and a sense of delicious mischief.
One should have known something was up when the trio in the corner – during cocktails on the 7th floor overlooking scenic downtown San Jose – launched into a tango so compelling one was forced to look over to the source of the music. Surprisingly and not surprisingly, it included Bob Gardner on bass. Tango and all, the music sashayed its way through the lively mesh of conversation that defined the crowded room in that pre-dinner hour.
When enough yummy hors d’oeuvres had been consumed, and just the right amount of Jazz Cellars wine – the winemaker himself now serving as the Executive Director of EDAC – the gong sounded, doors opened at one end of the room, and huge clumps of happy revelers jostled into the adjoining hall to seek out their assigned tables and grab their chairs, all anticipating good food and great fun.
With at least 200 people in attendance, CEDA and EDAC did not disappoint. Of course, it’s hard to avoid a home run when the irrepressible Wally Rhines is at the center of the play, but this evening CEDA/EDAC delivered up something more akin to a grand slam.
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Tags: Aart de Geus, Bob Smith, CEDA, Don Pederson, EDAC, Gary Smith, Greg Hinkley, IEEE, Jazz Cellars, Lip-bu Tan, Lori Kate Smith, Morris Chang, Phil Kaufman Award, Rich Templeton, Richard Newton, Rick Clemmer, Ron Rohrer, Shang-Yi Chiang, Shispal Rawat, SMU, Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, Wally Rhines
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Thursday, July 30th, 2015
It’s been 10 years since I first explained why TSMC should buy Cadence. Now a decade on, many things have changed in the world and many have not.
Among the things that have not changed? TSMC still should buy Cadence.
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Means …
First of all, let’s look at the numbers (per Yahoo Financials re: 2014):
* Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.
Employees: 43,500
Market Cap: $166.44 billion
Revenue: $27.31 billion
Operating margin: 39.26%
Net income: $9.70 billion
Total Cash: $16.61 billion on $7.40 billion in debt
* Cadence Design Systems Inc.
Employees: 6,100
Market Cap: $6.14 billion
Revenue: $1.61 billion
Operating margin: 11.23%
Net income: $161.1 million
* Conclusion
TSMC has got the means to buy Cadence.
By a long shot.
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Tags: Cadence, Lip-bu Tan, SpringSoft, Synopsys, Taiwan, TSMC
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