Electronic Design Automation (EDA): Failure of Capitalism?

EDA is a funny industry. It takes enormous intellectual horsepower to build software that can help design the chips that power today’s devices. It creates tremendous value. And yet, that value doesn’t translate into wealth these days. Failure of capitalism? Let’s examine.

And Then There Were Three

I have been saying for some time that the future of EDA  lies in consolidation of the players from the current four-horse race to a two-horse one. Finally, last month, Synopsys showed that they understood this requirement with the announcement of their acquisition of Magma, a company I expected would have been acquired some time ago.

EDA Roundup: Big Four Have Stabilized

The EDA players believe that the current year will bring growth for their industry. According to Snyopsys’ management, the outlook for semiconductors is at upper-single-digit growth this year. Industry analysts also expect a CAGR of 9%-11% over the next five years. Besides growth, the industry also believes that the “time-to-market” pressure is back on account of the

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EDA Feeling Icahn’s Touch

The EDA industry is finally seeing some much-needed action. Carl Icahn, the largest shareholder in Mentor Graphics (NASDAQ:MENT), realizes the importance of consolidation in the industry and believes that Mentor needs to be merged with another player, a move that could cut costs significantly. Several years ago, I had proposed the same thing.

Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Alan Perkins, CIO of Altium (Part 7)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini SM: Right. I think what you are getting at is exactly the trend that I too have spotted in the context of cloud and EDA – the collaboration aspect of an electronic designer’s life. The EDA workflow can be impacted heavily by cloud computing. For an entrepreneur,

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Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Alan Perkins, CIO of Altium (Part 6)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini SM: Yes, right. Let me switch to the next topic which is in the context of our 1M/1M initiative whereby we are trying to help entrepreneurs looking especially to deliver solutions in the cloud domain. Where do you see opportunities for such entrepreneurs in this shift of

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Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Alan Perkins, CIO of Altium (Part 5)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini SM: Well, there are fairly hairy issues around some of the security aspects of the cloud. Through this vault concept of yours, you make designs available to be hosted in a public repository, right? What is stopping people from copying designs? What are the intellectual property issues?

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Thought Leaders In Cloud Computing: Alan Perkins, CIO of Altium (Part 4)

By Sramana Mitra and guest author Shaloo Shalini SM: That is interesting to know. You are saying that for large file transfers you, don’t use any of the services like youSENDit? AP: Typically not. Obviously, there are a few places within Altium where people individually use such services. Some of my IT team use a

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