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I worked with Jim at GateField which was the acquired by Actel. Great guy! Jim was one of the Semiconductor greats for sure. I'm very sorry to hear this.
I worked with Jim at VLSI during his tenure there as president. In fact I used to have regular meetings with him at 7am (ugh) every few weeks to explain various aspects of design and EDA. Like most industry veterans he had grown up in the industry in an era where he knew a lot about process development and fab operations but very little about design. One habit he had was that he would always take copious notes, filling perhaps a dozen pages in an hour. I wondered if it was just a habit, a way of making sure he actually took note of what was being said, or if he actually ever went back and read them (or even cataloged them all, he must have got through a legal pad every day). Anyway, he joined the board of Mentor after leaving VLSI so hopefully the notes came in useful.
After leaving VLSI, he founded Lovoltech along with Ho Yu and others from VLSI, a company that made low power voltage regulators. They changed their name to Qspeed for some reason and they were acquired by Power Integrations earlier this year.
I too recall Jim from my days at VLSI. I especially recall the first time I met him. He presented an extremely detailed, statistics laden overview of our fabs operations. It was astonishing how deeply he understood the data and all its implications - it was very clear that he wasn't simply projecting slides that someone else had generated. Either he generated the data himself (unlikely) or (more likely) some-one else generated it and he studied it closely so that he completely grokked it. So, Paul, I would venture to say that he re-read the notes he took with you.
Mike Kaskowitz • I am very sorry to hear this. Jim was a great guy, and he had a major impact on the entire Semiconductor and EDA industries! His contributions will surely be remembered...
My Dad loved working with you guys. I will share this thread with the family. As for note taking, Dad took incredibly laborious notes on practically everything. He would make certain to learn every detail about everything he was involved in. I thought you all might enjoy seeing a site my cousin Doug created for Dad. You can find it at James R. Fiebiger Thank you for sharing your memories of him.
