category: What Were They Thinking

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Goal-Driven AI
By Brian Bailey - 26 Nov, 2024 - Comments: 2

For many, the long-term dream for AI within EDA is the ability to define a set of goals and tell the computer to go design it for them. A short while later, an optimized design will pop out. All of today's EDA tools will remain hidden, if they even exist at all. You would only be limited by your imagination. But we also know that AI is not to be trusted today, especially when millions of dol... » read more

Degrees Of Freedom For Innovation
By Brian Bailey - 11 Nov, 2024 - Comments: 0

I have been involved in several startups during my career, both true startups and startup ventures within a large EDA company. While they both demand innovative solutions, they have a very different goal and structures. When researching my story about innovation within EDA (yet to be published), I expected to receive a lot of large company bashing. While some pointed to sales strategies that... » read more

Revitalizing DAC
By Brian Bailey - 25 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

The 61st Design Automation Conference is just two months away and as I get closer to retirement, I know there will only be a few remaining for me. I entered the EDA industry in 1980, so have been involved with it for almost 45 years. Over that period, I have only missed a few. It is interesting how the conference has changed over the years. In the early days, DAC was only a conference, where... » read more

Career Transitions
By Brian Bailey - 28 Mar, 2024 - Comments: 0

Many people change their career path, sometimes to take on new challenges, sometimes following opportunity or money. As we learn, we develop both expertise and skill sets and in many cases expertise in one area has diminished value in another, meaning that it becomes more difficult to switch as we get older. But there are times when both knowledge and skills can be fully transferred, making the... » read more

Design Tool Think Tank Required
By Brian Bailey - 29 Feb, 2024 - Comments: 1

When I was in the EDA industry as a technologist, there were three main parts to my role. The first was to tell customers about new technologies being developed and tool extensions that would be appearing in the next release. These were features they might find beneficial both in the projects they were undertaking today, and even more so, would apply to future projects. Second, I would try and ... » read more

Respect? Confused
By Brian Bailey - 25 Jan, 2024 - Comments: 0

In a recent story, I talked about how EDA has gained respect in the financial markets, which is something it has failed to do for decades. EDA, in the eyes of Wall Street, had become a plodder through good times and bad, failing to achieve the growth shown by semiconductor companies or foundries, or the rapid rise to glory of other software companies. Of course, it never experienced the same de... » read more

The Good Old Days Of EDA
By Brian Bailey - 30 Nov, 2023 - Comments: 5

Nostalgia is wonderful, but there is something about being involved in the formative years of an industry. Few people ever get to experience it, and it was probably one of the most fortuitous events to have happened in my life. Back in the early '80s, little in the way of design automation existed. There were a few gate- and transistor-level simulators, primarily for test and a few 'calculators... » read more

The Limits Of AI-Generated Models
By Brian Bailey - 26 Oct, 2023 - Comments: 2

In several recent stories, the subject of models has come up, and one recurrent theme is that AI may be able to help us generate models of a required abstraction. While this may be true in some cases, it is very dangerous in others. If we generalize, AI should be good for any model where the results are predominantly continuous, but discontinuities create problems. Unless those are found and... » read more

The Federation Needs A Taxonomy
By Brian Bailey - 28 Sep, 2023 - Comments: 0

While putting together the story about federated simulation, it brought back memories of an earlier part of my career when I spent a lot of time looking at modeling abstractions and simulation frameworks. In the mid-1990s, the notions of re-using pre-designed blocks of IP started to become popular, but the fledgling industry was in disarray. Every IP block had a different set of deliverables... » read more

Predicting The Future For Semiconductors
By Brian Bailey - 24 Aug, 2023 - Comments: 1

Is it possible to predict the future? Of course not. We all make projections of what happened in the past, where they are now, and the implications for the future. We bias that in various ways and think we are making some astounding revelation, which is highly unlikely to become true. Of course, by luck, some people get it right and they are bestowed with grand accolades and awards. The likelih... » read more

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