EDACafe: EDACafe Editorial

EDACafe Editorial

Posts Tagged ‘Walden C. Rhines’

Wally Rhines: Grand Challenges in EDA

Thursday, June 8th, 2017

This is the second in a 4-part series on Grand Challenges in EDA. Last week’s entry featured Adapt-IP Chair John Sanguinetti. This week’s conversation is with Mentor Graphics CEO Walden C. Rhines.

Rhines has led Mentor Graphics since 1996, following a distinguished career at TI heading up the ginormous semiconductor group there. His PhD is in material science, but his interests are far more diverse. Additionally, his name and his company have been in the news of late because Mentor was just acquired by Siemens, where he continues to serve in a leadership role. Rhines received the Phil Kaufman Award in 2015, the EDA industry’s highest honor.

Given Dr. Rhines’ storied career as a keynote speaker, it’s not surprising that he came to our May 26th phone call fully prepared to articulate what he sees as today’s Grand Challenges in EDA. Rhines says there are “at least three big ones.”

(more…)

Tags: Grand Challenges in EDA, Mentor Graphics, Siemens, von Neumann architecture, Walden C. Rhines
1 Comment »

Siemens snags Mentor: Cartel canceled, Gary Smith vindicated

Thursday, March 30th, 2017

Today is the day some EDA purists thought would never happen: The disassembling of an industry status quo that’s been in place for over 20 years

As of today, Mentor Graphics has been sold and is fully owned by Siemens. Now Mentor’s arc of history will be decided by folks not residing in the green forests and hills of northern Oregon, and the Big Three cartel is no more. A cartel which has slowly consolidated the playing field over time until nary a startup can be seen.

The power vested in the Big Three EDA companies has grown steadily and inexorably over these years, as has their market dominance. Examination of recent numbers provided by the ESD Alliance Market Statistics Service indicates that today, in excess of 85-percent of the revenue earned in the EDA industry can be attributed to the combination of Synopsys, Cadence, and Mentor Graphics.

These three companies, their leadership, sales prowess, and increasing control of the conversation and technical direction in the industry has made for a powerful cartel. But again, that cartel is no more and the crystal ball predicting future dynamics within the EDA industry has gone dark.

(more…)

Tags: Cadence, EDA Consortium, ESD Alliance, ESD Alliance Market Statistics Service, Gary Smith, Judith Marks, Mentor Graphics, Siemens, Synopsys, System-level design, Tony Hemmelgarn, Walden C. Rhines
1 Comment »

Kaufman Award: My vote goes to Wally

Thursday, August 20th, 2015

As you all know, the Kaufman Award is presented every 12 to 18 months by the EDA industry, with support from the EDA Consortium and the IEEE Council on EDA.

Year in and year out, an individual from industry or academia is honored for providing a “demonstrable impact on electronic design through contributions in the field of EDA,” an impact in business, or industry direction and promotion, or technology and engineering, or education and mentoring.

Based on those parameters, in recent years we’ve seen luminaries such as Dr. Lucio Lanza, Dr. Chenming Hu, Dr. C.L. Liu, Mr. Pat Pistilli, Dr. Randy Bryant, and Dr. Aart de Geus receive this highly coveted commendation in reflection of their hard work, innovation, and dedication to EDA.

Now the fall of the year is upon us, and even though there is no date as yet posted to the EDAC website to indicate which day and hour in November this year’s Kaufman Award will be presented, or to whom, it’s a good guess the info will not be long in coming. It’s my hope that when the news does break, the answer will be Dr. Walden C. Rhines.

(more…)

Tags: EDA Consortium, IEEE Council on EDA, Mentor Graphics, Phil Kaufman Award, Walden C. Rhines
2 Comments »