The first six articles in this series described the history of the EDA industry from its earliest beginnings to becoming the multi-billion-dollar heart of the semiconductor industry. Starting with one-off tools developed by various systems companies for their R&D departments developing circuit boards and ICs, the commercial EDA industry was ignited by the spark that was the Design Automation Conference. It then progressed through various … Read More → "A Brief and Personal History of EDA Part 7: EDA’s 60-Layer Cake"
I hail from the days of 5V transistor-transistor level (TTL) logic, like the SN7400-series of integrated circuits (ICs) from Texas Instruments (TI) that leapt onto the centerstage circa the mid-1960s with a hullabaloo of heckelphones, which isn’t something you can hope to hear very often (thank goodness).
As an aside, I’d like to give a shout-out … Read More → "SPOT Platform Gives Ambiq’s Apollo510 MCU an Unfair Low Power Advantage"
The Mead-Conway methodology for designing VLSI ICs triggered the development of three dominant CAE companies – Daisy, Mentor Graphics, and Valid – which in turn led to the later development of the three dominant EDA companies – Cadence, Synopsys, and Mentor Graphics. These histories appear in Parts 3 and 4 of this article series. The emergence of the three EDA companies was immediately followed by a long, continuing era of EDA acquisitions, … Read More → "A Brief and Personal History of EDA, Part 6: The IP Era"
I’m a simple man. It’s very kind of you to say that you agree with everything I just said, but I hadn’t fully finished my thought. What I was going to say was that I’m a simple man and I like a simple story. Sometimes I finish an interview with someone and—as soon as the video conference call closes—I burst into tears and/or maniacal laughter (figuratively, not literally, you understand… although sometimes it’s been a close call). …
Read More → "Something M-azing This Way Comes"
EDA’s acquisition era arrived close on the heels of the EDA era. SDA merged with ECAD to form Cadence in 1987, and the new company’s first acquisition was in 1989. The company has made nearly 40 acquisitions to date. Synopsys incorporated in 1986, and its first acquisition was in 1990. The company has made more than 100 acquisitions to date. Mentor Graphics metamorphosed from a dying CAE company into a vibrant … Read More → "A Brief and Personal History of EDA, Part 5: The Acquisition Era"