Warren's IP column debuts
Just to tidy things up, Warren Savage's column on semiconductors and intellectual property has now begun - check out the first instalment Warren Savage On: Making the Case for Invented Here
Just to tidy things up, Warren Savage's column on semiconductors and intellectual property has now begun - check out the first instalment Warren Savage On: Making the Case for Invented Here
[Alun Williams, Web Editor, writes] Please keep an eye out for a new column from Warren, covering the same IP beat, that will be appearing on ElectronicsWeekly.com soon.
Warren will be presenting essentially the same content, but in a monthly column format, which means the blog will no longer be updated. Thanks to all the readers of these posts - we hope you make the journey with us to the new column!
AW
Last week about 400 people from around the world descended upon Austin, Texas for the first annual Power Architecture Developers Conference. It was a remarkable two days of seeing competitors lay down their weapons to come together for the nerd equivalent of the Summer of Love.
As I’ve mentioned in this space on several occasions, the future of the semiconductor business will require collaboration and healthy ecosystems. I participated in two panels.
Many of my friends in the U.K. and Europe won’t appreciate an American sports legend, Yogi Berra. But Berra was a solid catcher for the New York Yankees during their golden days of the 1950’s. But Yogi is most famous for his “Berra-isms”, his unusual knack for mangling the English language in his own brand of folksy wisdom. Impossible to describe, so here are some examples:
• “A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
• “You can observe a lot by watching.”
• “If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”
• “Ninety percent of the game is half mental.”
The debate on the future to the IP market rages on with dozens of Letters to the Editor protesting Mark Lapedus’ controversial opinion piece (Semi IP is a lost Cause) last month.
I’ve just returned from Japan and had the fortune to pick up a great, thought provoking book called “Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. A Black Swan is defined as a rare event with three very special characteristics: 1) It is not predicted, 2) it has massive consequences usually on a global scale, and 3) in retrospect people invariable claim that they could have predicted it if they had been paying attention. Examples of Black Swans are 9/11, the Netscape IPO, and the stock crash of October 1987.
As I've written in this column before, a key impediment to System Verilog's application as a IP design language is uniform support across the major EDA players. Without a consistent set of implemented features and tested interoperability, IP design with System Verilog is too risky.
A significant step in System Verilog's maturity happened last week with the announcement that Cadence and Mentor have teamed to work together to develop the Open Verification Methodology around System Verilog. Bravo! With this move, the odds of System Verilog IP working across platform dramatically improve.
Continue reading "Cindarella stood up at the System Verilog Ball" »
On behalf of the IP industry, I’m happy to paraphrase Mark Twain in that the news of our death as been greatly exaggerated.
Mark LaPedus of EETimes last week made a few provocative statements in his column last week Semi IP Sector is a Lost Cause calling the semiconductor IP sector a “non-profit business” and posted a follow-up challenge to companies to challenge his conclusion Letter to Semi IP vendors adding that it would be probably a better use of his time to improve his golf game than to write about the IP market.
The Virtual Socket Industry Alliance (VSIA) announced on July 10 that it was closing operations. In the article Electronics standards group VSIA to close, many of the initiatives incubated by the VSIA are now looking for homes in other standards organizations like IEEE and The Spirit Consortium. It’s a sad, closing chapter to a well-intentioned concept that never found a constituency.
Look at any company’s web site and it’s likely you’ll see a “Partner” section. It seems that everybody has partners, and the more the better. Thinking about this today, for some reason an old Barry Manilow jingle for Dr. Pepper got stuck in my head.
I’m a partner
You’re a partner
He’s a partner
She’s a partner
Wouldn’t you like to be a partner too?
Allow me a few moments to go green. Green is everywhere these days, from political parties to E85-compatible cars to new start up companies looking for the next big thing. As Al Gore put to us in “Inconvenient Truth" the planet Earth is an incredible machine composed of a vast number of systems that work together. Working properly, it is a miracle to behold. Perturbed, it can get a little cranky. It is also a system that has a huge capacity to adapt to stress, and the current worry on many people’s minds are whether industrialization is stressing the planet’s ecosystems beyond its natural capacity. Good question, but not one for discussion here.
