AMIQ: Celebrating 20 Years in Consulting and EDA

We’re getting close to the annual July Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco, and every year I like to make the rounds of the exhibitors beforehand and see what’s new. When I checked with AMIQ EDA, I found that this is a big year for them. Their parent company AMIQ just reached its 20^th anniversary, and they’ll be celebrating that accomplishment at DAC this year.

I read a bit about their history and found that AMIQ was founded in 2003—20 years ago indeed—by Cristian Amitroaie, Stefan Birman, and Adrian Simionescu (Simi). I learned that the company was started to provide verification consulting services, but I was more familiar with their electronic design automation (EDA) business. I usually speak with Cristian, now CEO of AMIQ EDA, but for this topic he directed me to Stefan, CEO of AMIQ Consulting, and Simi, R&D Director at AMIQ EDA.

Why did you start AMIQ?

Stefan: There were three primary reasons:

• To practice engineering within the semiconductor industry and help customers with high quality services and products
• To give something back to the environment that we sprouted from and to prove it is possible to create value with local capital
• To work with smart people who have a passion for engineering and to never work for incompetent managers again!

What were your backgrounds?

Simi: All three of us were hands-on engineers working on chip design and verification. We are engineers by education, experience and passion. We had been colleagues for three years when we decided to strike out on our own. Before that, we had our own experiences with different companies’ environments, projects and cultures. Although we shared a common vision, each of us had and still has his own qualities and imperfections, which somehow complement each other.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the industry in those 20 years?

Stefan: There are many. One big change is the shrinking of the semiconductor industry in Europe, with most of it going to China, India, and the U.S. This led our European-based company to adapt quickly to solicit and support a worldwide customer base.

In terms of chip design and verification technology, we’ve been through some very interesting technology waves. We’ve seen the “e” language rising and falling, we’ve used a bit of Vera, and we’ve watched it mix with Verilog into SystemVerilog. We’ve lived through the creation and rise of various verification methodologies, from the e Reuse Methodology (eRM) to the SystemVerilog-based Universal Verification Methodology (UVM).

Have these changes affected your business?

Simi: Certainly, especially since SystemVerilog is now the most widely used of the many languages and formats we support. But perhaps the biggest evolution for us has been the semiconductor industry adopting software processes and tools: a “softwarization” of the hardware world. Some examples include:

• Agile methodologies have replaced the old waterfall-based management
• Continuous integration (CI) pipelines have been implemented
• Git has replaced 80s code versioning technology
• Engineers have adopted Python as a backbone scripting language
• Verification, design, and project metrics are now handled by big data frameworks
• Integrated development environments (IDEs) are now used for SystemVerilog, SystemC, the “e” language, and more

This last point is especially important because that’s what led to us expanding from consulting into EDA. Until 2004, nobody thought of using IDEs for hardware languages. We initially developed Design and Verification Tools (DVT) Eclipse IDE for internal use on consulting projects. We found it so valuable that we established AMIQ EDA in 2008 to make it available to all users. We’ve since expanded to other tools, including our Verissimo SystemVerilog Linter, which eliminates 90% of the code review burden while ensuring compliance with the UVM.

What were the top three challenges you’ve faced?

Stefan: The first challenge, which probably applies to any entrepreneur, is learning as you go. All three of us had engineering backgrounds, so everything else related to business and people we had to learn along the way. Our first employee was our accountant and CFO, Anca Nicolaescu, who is still working with us.  Everything else—programming, marketing, business development, HR, legal paperwork—was done by one or more of the three of us.

Today we have grown to 70 employees with dedicated people for each function or role required by any healthy company. The challenge is to learn as you go, while at the same time still providing value to customers, assuring the quality of products and services, interviewing people, and mentoring new employees, while also having a personal life.

Along those lines, another challenge is organic scaling. You might be surprised to find that the challenge is not to grow, but to refrain from growing. Every time a new employee joins the company it takes time to internalize the AMIQ culture, become part of the team, and start contributing value. Learning technical skills is the least important part of this process; if they were hired it means they already have the skills they need. The challenge is making the new employee part of the team, of the culture, of the vision. You need to refrain from hiring too many people at once if that risks affecting the culture in a negative way.

Stefan: Of course, new people don’t just absorb the existing company culture. They also help to evolve the culture to make possible further scaling and to adapt to changing requirements. So the third challenge is finding and growing the right people. The whole process is time-consuming and personally demanding. At AMIQ, the employees themselves do the screening and interviews, so they are empowered to select the future team members. It is a good way to foster and pass on our culture, and also an opportunity for our employees to grow.

Have you had success and has it matched your expectations?

Simi: Yes, we are successful, both objectively measurable and in more subtle and subjective ways. It is success that AMIQ people have given their best for the last 20 years and customers ask for more of our products and services. It is success that we have customers who have worked with us for the last 15 years. It is success that employees have chosen to stay with AMIQ for 16 years already. It is success that first-year college students join our internship program and most stay with us after graduation. It is success when you see people growing from fresh graduates to highly skilled professionals, taking up leading roles and growing other people in turn.

Does it match our expectations? Well, we did not start from a business plan done by a professional business consultant with hard bottom lines and hiring quotas and an exit strategy. We dreamed of doing what we knew best, growing a company around that, and getting to a financially stable place in the process. And we are there today, as we speak, with an even brighter future ahead.

I have to say that AMIQ has had quite a journey, perhaps even a heroic one, starting so small and achieving so much. Thank you very much for sharing it with us.

Stefan and Simi: Thank you, Dan, and thank you to all the employees who made AMIQ possible, the customers who entrusted us with their problems, and the families and friends who supported us in our endeavors. It was not possible without your patience and your faith in us.

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