category: What Were They Thinking

category: Auto, Security & Edge AI

The Circle Of Test And EDA Is Complete
By Brian Bailey - 22 May, 2014 - Comments: 1

For those of you who were around and involved with EDA back in the early ’80s, you may remember that chip design was not the focus. It was the board that received most of the attention. Chips were small and did not require much in the way of functional verification. [getkc id="29" kc_name="Synthesis"] had not been invented and so gate-level design was where everything happened, and much of th... » read more

Ivy League Colleges Crumbling
By Brian Bailey - 24 Apr, 2014 - Comments: 1

Last week I attended a talk from David Pearce Snyder. Snyder is a data-based forecaster, or what some people call a futurist. He has consulted for many Fortune 500 companies and the government. This is part of a lecture series put on by the Institute for Science, Engineering and Public Policy and I got to attend because [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor Graphics"] is a sponsor of these talk... » read more

We Are All Vulnerable
By Brian Bailey - 27 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 1

Target, Neiman Marcus, Michaels. We are all familiar with the huge loss of personal and financial data from these establishments. A lot more people are fuming over the data being accessed by the NSA. While we only know the details as leaked by Edward Snowden, this has to be the biggest data breach in history with the government having hacked into the data centers of Google, Yahoo and who knows ... » read more

The End Of Automated Patent Trolls?
By Brian Bailey - 27 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 2

I have written several articles and blogs recently about the [getkc id="16" comment="patent"] system, and readers of What Were They Thinking know that I like to poke fun at patents that never should have been issued because they are obvious, silly or would never actually be able to work. There are patents that cover using a laser pointer to play with a cat, to water a Christmas tree or to creat... » read more

Fixing The Patent System
By Brian Bailey - 31 Jan, 2014 - Comments: 7

Yesterday I published an article that looked at the state of the [getkc id="16" comment="patent"] system in the U.S. and the changes that may happen when the Supreme Court hears the case of Alice Corp. and CLS Bank International. A ruling from the Supreme Court may serve to clarify the bounds of what is and is not patentable when it comes to areas such as business methods, financial systems and... » read more

Establishing The Calendar
By Brian Bailey - 20 Jan, 2014 - Comments: 3

Back in the dawn of time, when man settled down, stopped being a nomad and wanted to plant crops, it became important to be able to measure time. When was the right time to plant crops and to harvest? When could the rains be expected to come? When would the first frost come? It was no longer good enough to trust doing the happy rain dance or to pray to some gods. It was better to know and under... » read more

Joe Costello To Get Back Into EDA?
By Brian Bailey - 31 Dec, 2013 - Comments: 3

While other writers in this world rely on gossip, there is a lot more that can come from hard work and paying attention. Perhaps one of the most famous and charismatic people from the EDA world is [getperson id="11147" p_name="Joe Costello"] – former CEO of [getentity id="22032" e_name="Cadence"] and still missed by many. Until recently he was CEO of a company called Orb Networks, a streamin... » read more

Patenting The Holidays
By Brian Bailey - 19 Dec, 2013 - Comments: 0

It happens every year — a new batch of [getkc id="16" kc_name="patents"] related to Christmas ornaments, things to rotate trees, or festive light controllers. Activity really did slow down this year with only six new [getkc id="98" kc_name="utility patents"] and five [getkc id="99" kc_name="design patents"] containing the word Christmas in their title, and a further two utility patents wit... » read more

Flawed Research?
By Brian Bailey - 09 Dec, 2013 - Comments: 0

Soft errors were first talked about a long time ago and [getkc id="22" kc_name="memories"], which are the most susceptible to this type of error due to their finer geometries and tighter packing, have long included protection from such errors. But the scare has proven to be larger than the real problem. However, as geometries shrink, we are again hearing about the potential problems. Researc... » read more

Coming Up With The Wrong Formal Answer
By Brian Bailey - 21 Nov, 2013 - Comments: 0

It was a surreal moment. I was sitting in a conference room in Portland listening to a panel session about [getkc id="33" kc_name="formal"] methods. The topic was discussing the fact that there is insufficient education at the undergraduate level in formal methods and algorithmic approaches to verification. You can read about the panel here. In the question and answer session, a point was ma... » read more

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