A day in the life of a blogger (me)
To me, getting out and collaborating (meeting people) is what life is all about. As an "industry recognized international blogger" I get free passes to all conferences, such a deal. I go to as many as I can and I encourage the SemiWiki bloggers to drive as much traffic to these events as possible. Getting semiconductor designers out of their cubes is not as easy as you think! And I'm happy to give away iPad2s for trip reports so the people who could not attend can still get a feeling of what it is all about.
So here is a day in my life:
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I leave Danville (yes I'm Dan from Danville) at 6am because I hate traffic. First stop is Specialty's because (1) they have great WiFi and (2) I just love fresh baked muffins. I do not discriminate here, I love all fresh muffins. Milpitas, Santa Clara, San Jose, I spend a lot of time at Specialty's.
Do not fault my iPhone 4s for the picture quality. I'm a real bad photographer.
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This is my favorite mode of transportation. It is a lot like me, lots of miles on it but it still looks good (from a distance). I have driven this car 300k+ miles without a problem, original engine etc.... This car has gotten me to where I am today and the journey is not over. My wife does not like this car but rarely admits it because she knows that when I buy a new car it will be a Porsche and the new ones go MUCH faster than this one. I test drove a 2012 Porsche with the new PDK transmission and I nearly wet myself.
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Just down the street from Specialty's is the Santa Clara Convention Center, my absolute favorite convention center of all time because it is easy to get to and has lots of bathrooms.
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I really like fountains. This picture is probably the best one that I took so click on it to see the full size. In literature water is re-birth, a new beginning, cleansing. To most of you water is is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O.
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My first stop was the press room to get my badge, it was not picture worthy. Sometimes they have food there but not this time. When bloggers first appeared at conferences with press badges, the press people did not welcome us with open arms. My badge says media which is a much better description of what I do anyway. I literally spent two days talking to SemiWiki readers. Some arranged meetings in advance, most just introduced themselves. I also had some meetings with vendors, SemiWiki subscribers, and consulting clients of mine. My feet and voice still hurt.
View attachment 2798I have not heard the attendance numbers yet but my guess is that it was an up year. It was pretty crowded both Tuesday and Wednesday. Unfortunately I did not get to any of the sessions I had planned on attending. It was more fun talking to people in the halls and at the tables. There will always be detractors but it makes my day when someone says they read SemiWiki. Lots of people ask me for help which I'm glad to do. I make introductions on LinkedIn all the time. Before SemiWiki I had few hundred connections, today I have thousands. I connect to all SemiWiki members, so register for SemiWiki, send me a LinkedIn invitation and let me know what I can do to help!
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Apache Design Automation is now: Apache Design, Inc., A Subsidiary of ANSYS, Inc. We have been working with Apache for almost a year now and it has been a great experience. Clearly Apache knows how to develop and great market products. "Low power design" and "Apache" have been top trending searches on SemiWiki since the start and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Kristen Kildebeck is at the desk, we worked together at Virage Logic. Kristen's feedback on SemiWiki has been quite hlepfull, she knows social media.
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Mixel is not a SemiWiki subscriber but I write about them anyway. Ashraf is a good guy, Mixel is a good company, so they are always worth mentioning. Mixel demonstrated
LVDS SerDes, a high-performance 4-channel IP, supporting up to 1.25 Gbps /channel, providing 5Gbps aggregate bandwidth. SuperD’s 3D product achieved 1stpass silicon success in record time, extending Mixel’s leadership in high-performance mobile
PHYs, including
LVDS,
MDDI, and
MIPI IP. They have a great demo! Give Ashraf a call: 408-942-9300
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This is Marshall Gingold, we worked together at Avant!. Uniquify is not a SemiWiki subscriber but they are also a great company. Uniquify is a provider of leading edge ASIC turnkey services and IP solutions, focusing on complex multi-million gate System-on-Chip (SoC) designs. The company provides a wide range of services from chip architecture and methodology consulting through physical design implementation and verification. Give Marshall a call: 408-235-8810
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Sam Beal (middle guy) is an internet marketing expert and has helped with SemiWiki. Look at Arasan's new website and you will see how good he is. Arasan Chip Systems is a leading provider of Total IP solutions for mobile storage and connectivity applications. Arasan’s high-quality, silicon-proven, Total IP Solutions include digital IP cores, analog PHY interfaces, verification IP, hardware verification kits, protocol analyzers, software stacks and drivers and optional customization services for MIPI, USB, SD, SDIO, MMC/ eMMC, CF, UFS and many other popular standards. I know quite a few people that work at Arasan so I'm biased. Give Ron Mabry (VP Sales, also a friend) a call: (408) 282-1600
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This is Tom Simon, I met Tom at Calma years and years and years ago. Lorentz Solution is an EDA company delivering the industry’s first IC-focused Electromagnetic (EM) Design & Verification solution. The company’s product suite, PeakViewTM, provides a fully automatic 3D EM Synthesis and flexible EM Design Verification for users of the CadenceTM custom IC design and circuit simulation environments. Designers regain control over layouts containing sensitive interconnect and passive devices through early design stage detection and repair of EM Integrity design faults before they become a problem. Tom is always good for a free lunch so give him a call: 408-922-0765
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Mentor Graphics was there to support our industry. Go Mentor! Mentor has been with SemiWiki since beta. As you have probably read, SemiWiki and Mentor are hosting a Seminar series with ecosystem partners. The first one was Tuesday, I will blog about it when the video goes up. Remember, the camera adds 20 lbs. Mentor is all about collaboration so it is a pleasure to blog about them, as Paul McLellan, Daniel Payne and I have done over the years.
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Cadence was also there. Sorry for the fuzzy picture but this is art. What I'm trying to portray here is that I don't actually know what Cadence is really up to. I do know that they just posted a
monster quarter so congratulations to them. Notice however that there is no mention of EDA360, may it rest in peace.
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This is where I end most days. I do one hour of cardio and 30 minutes of weights listening to Pandora on my iPhone 4s. It is my version of meditation. It gives me time to de-stress, reflect, invoke a level of consciousness that I would not have otherwise. Long life is inherent in my family. My Grandfather, a WWI Veteran, lived to be 102. I was his caregiver and he told me many times that if he knew how long he was going to live he would have taken better care of himself, especially his teeth so don't forget to floss. Hopefully I will not live that long but if I do I will be better prepared.
The most interesting discussions in the halls were about the Synopsys acquisition of Magma, the deal should close on the 17th of this month. Again, I believe that this deal is not only good for Synopsys AND Cadence AND Mentor AND especially Berkeley Design Automation, I believe it is a great deal for Magma. The question that was most frequently asked was: What will happen to the Magma products?
Take a look at:
EDA Mergers and Acquisitions Wiki - SemiWiki
Now ask yourself what happened to all of those products?
To be fair, Synopsys is the leading EDA company and they spend a considerable amount of time and money maintaining the company and product brands, and rightly so. So if you think Synopsys will favor a Magma branded product over one of their own you have got to be kidding.
D.A.N.
