The Name Changes but the Vision Remains the Same – ESD Alliance Through the Years

The Electronic System Design Alliance (ESDA) has been at the center of the EDA industry through its many changes over the years. It occurred to me that an update on this organization would be useful. ESDA is a technology community within SEMI and is managed primarily by a team of three who coordinate all its activities along with a group of dedicated volunteers from member companies. I had the good fortune to spend some time with two of those core team members recently.

We had a great time talking about the phases of ESDA’s story and the achievements that were made along the way. I realized this story needed telling. Those EDA veterans among us will know some, but maybe not all of it. And those who are new to EDA should know how the industry got here. The story has many twists and turns, but one simple fact rang out during our discussion about ESDA. The name changes but the vision remains the same. Let’s look at ESD Alliance through the years.

Who’s Talking?

The two gentlemen I spoke with were Bob Smith, Executive Director of ESD Alliance and Paul Cohen, Sr. Manager ESDA & R&D. I’ve known both Bob and Paul for a long time and I’ve had the pleasure of attending many of their events. I even helped to create a few of them. As we go through the story I’ll add some of my experiences as well. A couple of quick bios are appropriate:

Before ESDA, Bob was senior vice president of marketing and business development at Uniquify. Bob began his career as an analog design engineer working at Hewlett Packard. Since then, he has spent more than 30 years in various marketing, business development and executive management roles primarily working with startups and early-stage companies. These companies include IKOS Systems, Synopsys, LogicVision, and Magma Design Automation. He was a member of the IPO teams that took Synopsys public in 1992 and Magma public in 2001.

Paul Cohen has been with the various incarnations of ESDA for over 18 years. He is indeed the class historian. Prior to ESDA, Paul had a long career in semiconductor design/applications and EDA at companies such as Virage Logic, Fujitsu Microelectronics, Design Acceleration Inc, IDT, Prime Computer, and Digital Equipment Corporation. Paul began his career at General Electric.

The Beginning – EDAC

The story begins in 1989 when a group of EDA companies formed the group, Electronic Design Automation Companies, EDAC, to negotiate with the increasingly important trade show portion of the Design Automation Conference. DAC had been a prestigious technical conference for many years, dating all the way back to 1964. Momentum for commercial exhibits at the event began in the mid-1970s, and by the early 1980s, the trade show became a core element. The first commercial DAC was held in June 1984.

The EDA Companies became the EDA Consortium in 1996, continuing its role working with DAC while addressing additional industry-wide issues. The organization incorporated and became a co-sponsor of DAC in 1992, alongside the IEEE and ACM.

Many other important events occurred during this time that shaped the future of the EDA industry. One was the establishment of the Phil Kaufman Award, the highest recognition in the EDA industry. A Nobel Prize for EDA of sorts. The award took its name from Phil Kaufman, a pioneer in EDA who passed away in 1992. The IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA) became a co-sponsor in 2005.

The first Kaufman award was given to Dr. Hermann Gummel in 1994. Gummel was a researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories. He was recognized for his many fundamental contributions to central areas in EDA, including the integral charge control model for bipolar junction transistors that bears his name, the Gummel-Poon model. I knew both Hermann Gummel and Sam Poon – incredibly smart people.

Over the years, the coveted Kaufman Award has recognized some truly great pioneers. You should check out the all-star list here. 

In 2021, ESDA and CEDA created the Phil Kaufman Hall of Fame to posthumously recognize individuals who made significant contributions through creativity, entrepreneurism and innovation to the electronic system design industry and were not recipients of the Phil Kaufman Award.

Jim Hogan, executive, angel investor and board member, and Stanford University Professor Edward J. McCluskey were the first honorees.

In 1994, EDAC published the first Market Statistics Service (MSS) report (now the Electronic Design Market Data – EDMD – report). The report included detailed revenue that was reported in confidence by public and private EDA, IP, and services companies, allowing companies, investors and analysts to track trends in the industry. Over the years, these reports have tracked the substantial growth of the EDA industry. Walden C. Rhines is the Executive Sponsor of the SEMI Electronic Design Market Data report and has been from the start. You can hear the latest results of these reports on the Semiconductor Insiders Podcast Series on SemiWiki.  Here is the most current report.

Also, during this first phase in 2009 the organization coined the term EDA, Where Electronics Begins. You can see the associated logo at the top of this post. The catch phrase was accompanied by an informative video. The forward-looking vision conveyed by this work has stood the test of time. Today, it’s as relevant as ever and the organization continues to promote these ideas. This enduring vision was the catalyst for this post’s title. It essentially named itself.

I will offer one more story from this era. In 2013, EDAC put together a substantial fund-raising event called EDA: Back to the Future. It was billed as an “industry reunion”, but the primary focus was fund raising to ensure EDA had its proper place in history. The event was held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

I was one of several folks who worked on the production of the event. There was a live auction and a silent auction, and a significant amount of money was raised to help document EDA’s contributions to the development of computing technology.

One last piece to share on this one. I was at eSilicon at the time, and we were the sponsor of an American Le Mans racing team called The Flying Lizards.  We donated a ViP pit crew pass for the upcoming race at Laguna Seca for the live auction. Someone everyone knows at SemiWiki was the proud winner of that auction lot, Dan Nenni. 

Expanding the Footprint – ESDA

In 2016, The Electronic Design Automation Consortium became the Electronic System Design Alliance. This name change supported a significant shift in the EDA industry. EDA tools were now being used for more than just chip design. The realization was occurring that collections of chips were becoming the backbone of new systems, and the need to expand EDA technology into that realm became important.

We saw a gradual shift in focus that went beyond the boundary of a single piece of silicon. EDA was becoming more widespread, and this spawned another wave of growth. Electronic system-level design became a thing.

Beyond this shift in design focus, there was another fundamental change occurring. EDA was no longer just about design tools. Semiconductor IP was gaining significant momentum as an enabler to build new systems more quickly and reliably. During our discussion, Bob Smith described an encounter at a Board Meeting with Simon Seagers. Simon was the CEO of Arm at the time and a member of the Board. Simon was lamenting the fact that he was part of an electronic design automation consortium, but he didn’t provide EDA tools.

IP was quickly becoming a substantial piece of the EDA market. Bob explained that Simon’s comments were taken seriously and that helped to move the organization toward a new and broader identity.

A Seat at a Bigger Table – SEMI

In 2018, the ESD Alliance became a SEMI technology community. The organization was now part of a global entity that brings together more than 3,500 member companies to make a difference on top industry issues for the microelectronics industry. Bob Smith described this phase as “the changing of the guard”.

Back to that enduring tagline, EDA, Where Electronics Begins. The team that invented that vision is now part of a substantial organization that is helping the larger audience of EDA users. On the surface, this seems like a perfect fit. In my conversation with Bob and Paul, I discovered something that is obvious if you think about it a bit.

Change is difficult and takes time. As part of the shift to SEMI, ESDA began to co-locate chip design events with the popular SEMICON expositions that SEMI held. This seems perfect – one event where the entire spectrum of design and manufacturing for semiconductors could be explored.

What Bob and Paul observed in the early days of these co-located events was very little “cross-over” behavior. Those who focused on manufacturing went to that part of SEMICON and those that focused on design went to ESDA’s event. This fact reflects the significant shift that is still occurring today to bring design and manufacturing together into one focus. Complex system designs, fueled by AI workload demands is driving it. So is heterogeneous multi-chip design. This discipline is driven significantly by material innovation in packaging, which is tied closely to manufacturing.

Bob and Paul also shared that they are seeing a shift in behavior at more recent SEMICON events. That integration of design and manufacturing focus is starting to happen. Welcome to the new world of semiconductors.

Some Final Thoughts

I have just scratched the surface of the impact from the organization formerly known as EDAC. There is so much more to the story, and we will dig deeper in future posts. Before closing, I want to thank Bob and Paul for spending time with me. And thanks to Nanette Collins for making it happen.

I got to know both Bob and Paul a bit better during our conversation. It’s worth mentioning there are other, non-EDA sides to each of these folks. Bob Smith is also a co-founder of a winery called Jazz Cellars, located in Murphys, CA. I have fond memories of attending EDAC and ESDA events where Bob would pour wine from Jazz Cellars.

Paul is something of a photography geek. He wields equipment far more sophisticated than the latest iPhone with great results. These skills have been quite valuable over the years to chronicle all the terrific events that the organization has delivered.

If you’d like to learn more about ESDA and its role in SEMI, this is a good place to start.  And that’s how the name changes but the vision remains the same.