This evening was the first Blogging Birds of a feather session at DAC. It was a very interesting session, mostly involving discussions between the “real journalists” in the room and the other bloggers. John Ford has already posted a very good summary of the meeting on DFT Digest, so please click over there to find out more. I’m also interested to see what the “real press” has to say.
harry the ASIC guy
Towards the end of my last post I mentioned a new company called Xuropa that is offering a Web 2.0 style Online Tradeshow Platform. As it turns out, Lou Covey covered them in his State of the Media blog today and also interviewed Xuropa founder James Colgan. Check it out.
FYI … You should also be able to meet James Colgan at the Bloggers Birds-of-a-Feather session at DAC.
“Offshore drilling?”
That’s what a puzzled ASIC designer would have asked with bewilderment if you mentioned the term “off-shoring” 10 years ago. But today the world is flat and off-shoring means global teams, working ’round the clock in 6 cities on 3 continents in 4 timezones on 1 chip. And it’s not just off-shoring and out-sourcing driving this globalization. Design teams for complex chips can have 100 - 150 designers doing tasks ranging from RTL design, verification, physical design, software and firmware development, mixed signal design, and so on. You just can’t find all the designers you need with the right expertise in one place or even in one company.
There are economic factors causing us to work remotely as well. Last week, American Airlines announced that they would start charging for baggage and other airlines are also raising their fares due to record oil prices. Companies, already watching the bottom line, are encouraging their people to travel less, just as they did several years ago after 9/11. Telecommuting has become accepted, even encouraged in many companies as a way to promote better employee lifestyles, save on office space, and be more “green”. As a result, for most of us, the days of the co-located design teams are as long gone as Hillary’s campaign.
Of course, these same ASIC and software design teams have designed and continue to design the technologies that enable effective collaboration between these dispersed teams. The high-speed networks that are the backbone that make it all possible. The IP routers. The graphics and specialized processors.
And let’s not forget the software applications that run on this hardware … Wikis for collaboration … WebEx, Sametime, and NetMeeting for remote meetings … Skype and Vonage for cheap global conferencing … video-conferencing … instant messaging … Twitter … Second Life … social networks like LinkedIn and FaceBook.
These technologies are impressive. Several years ago, I worked out of my home in Southern California, managing projects with team members in Silicon Valley, Arizona, Colorado, Washington State, Vancouver, Texas, Florida, Ottawa, and Bangalore. We conference called and held WebEx meetings. We worked on the same hosted environment through secure VPN. When necessary, we got up early (5 AM) or stayed up late (1 AM) to collaborate with team members half-way around the world. And these teams were able to get the job done as a result of their strong skills, hard work, and the technology that allowed them to work together. But, something was still missing and thanks to my sister-in-law I now realize what it was.
Face Time!
Our kids keep us pretty busy, so when Evelyn suggested that we need more “face time” with our kids, Joyce and I were flabbergasted. More face time? Don’t we already spend enough time getting them ready for school, dinner, or bed, taking them to this or that activity, helping with homework? Are there more than 24 hours in a day?
The truth is, although these parenting activities are important, they are not really face time. Face time is not about getting things done … it’s about getting to know one another better. Obviously, this makes a lot of sense if you are a parent, but you’re probably wondering what face time has to do with ASIC design? After all, this isn’t eHarmony or Parenting 101.
Several years ago, I attended a one-day class entitled Managing Virtually: What Works, taught by Lu Ellen Schafer of Global Savvy. Lu Ellen gave great advice on using email effectively, “drive-by-phoning” to stay in touch, collaboration tools, and especially on the difference between cultures (fascinating). But one thing stood out that she said. “Initial face-to-face interaction leads to greater remote communication.” She continued by pointing out that “informal email exchanges often do not happen among new team members until they meet face-to-face”. My friend Ron put it another way, “email is a great way to continue a relationship and a lousy way to start one”. And studies have shown this as well.
As for me, much of my day is consumed by discussions, meetings, and conference calls with co-workers, clients, and vendors. But that’s not really face time, even the face-2-face meetings. Face time is about getting to know one another and what the other person cares about. It’s something I’ve tried to do, but probably did not do enough. Go out to lunch. Go to a ballgame. Take a flight to meet a new person in the organization or on the team. Plan a team-building event and fly in the remote people. I’ve always found it easy to find excuses not to do these things … too busy … no budget … next time. But in the end, I always regret it because there is something missing. Something that feels like “trust”.
As a program manager, I recall three specific situations in which there was not enough trust because there was not enough face-time. In one case, there was some very nasty inter-personal conflict happening, but neither party trusted me enough to share their concerns until the situation was too far along. In another case, one remote team member felt he was being ignored by another remote team member, but he did not want to “bother” me with the issue. In the third instance, one team member decided to overrule another team member’s recommendations because “he knew better”. In that last case, once they met face-to-face, these two designers became a great tandem.
We all have to decide … Face Time or FaceBook?
This is not just a philosophical question but a practical one. I became aware a few days ago of a new social media company called Xuropa. From what I can gather from the website, the Xuropa Tradeshow Platform let’s you attend tradeshows at your desk. There are booths, suites, labs, demos … just like DAC, without the face time. So next year you may have a choice, DAC or eDAC?
As for me, I’m gonna have lunch on Friday with some people I haven’t seen in months. What about you?
harry the ASIC guy
Perhaps you are a blogger or are thinking of becoming a blogger or know somebody who is a blogger. Perhaps you are a marketing director or just curious. Whatever your interest, you’ll want to come meet and engage with the bloggers who are growing in quantity, quality and industry influence:
This event will be held in Rooms 201B and 201C at the Anaheim convention center on Wednesday, June 11 at 6pm.
I am helping to coordinate this session, so if you are planning to attend, just drop a quick email to harry {at} theASICguy {dot} com so we can get an idea for how large a group we will have. If you are a blogger and would like to present or be part of a panel, please let me know as well.
I hope to see and meet many of you there.
harry the ASIC guy
On her Standards Game Blog today, Karen Bartleson announced that Accellera is forming a subcommittee to define a standard for verification interoperability. That is, to try to settle the VMM / OVM war. As I have stated before in comments on JL Gray’s Cool Veification Blog, this is the right move because it give us input into the process, rather than just the EDA vendors controlling the process for their own benefit. Also, as I argued in a previous post entitled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, the influence and pressure of the verification community and especially the Cool Verification Blog were at least in part responsible.
Of course, Synopsys will tell you that they are just doing the right thing 
It’s not clear how Cadence and Mentor will respond. Hopefully they’ll join the effort. Let’s keep the pressure on.
Below is a video presentation that was given in 2006 by Rice University Engineering Professor Richard Baraniuk at the TED conference in Monterey, CA. Professor Baraniuk is founder of Connexions, a free, open-source, global clearinghouse of course materials that allows teachers to quickly “create, rip, mix and burn” coursework — without fear of copyright violations. Think of it as Napster for education. I think this is well worth 18 minutes of our time, since we all have an interest in education for ourselves, our children, and our peers. When you’re done, a challenge.
Now for the challenge … I’d like you to consider what this approach would do for the ASIC Intellectual Property industry, if we could all collaborate to create, rip, mix, and burn design IP under user friendly legal terms such as Creative Commons.
What do you think?
harry the ASIC guy
My friend Ron has a knack for recognizing revolutionary technologies before most of us. He was one of the first to appreciate the power of the browser and how it would transform the internet, previously used only by engineers and scientists. He was one of the first and best podcasters. And now he’s become a self-proclaimed New Media Evangelist, preaching the good news of Web 2.0 and making it accessible to “the rest of us”.
Most of us are familiar with mainstream Web 2.0 applications, whether we use them or our friends use them or our kids use them. Social and professional networks such as My Space, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Podcasts in iTunes. Blogging sites on every topic. Virtual worlds such as Second Life. Collaboration tools such as Wikipedia. File sharing sites such as Youtube and Flickr. Social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Technorati. Open source publishing tools such as Wordpress and Joomla. Using these technologies we’re having conversations, collaborating, and getting smarter in ways that were unimaginable just 5 years ago. Imagine, a rock climber in Oregon can share climbing techniques with a fellow climber in Alice Springs. And mostly for free, save for the cost of the internet connection.
When we think of Web 2.0, we tend to think of teenagers and young adults. But this technology was invented by us geeks and so it’s no surprise that the ASIC design world is also getting on-board. Here are some examples from the ASIC Design industry:
Social media is networking ASIC designer to ASIC designer enabling us to be smarter faster. But that’s not all. Many forward looking companies have recognized the opportunity to talk to their customers directly. About 6 months ago, Synopsys launched several blogs on its microsite. Xilinx also has a User Community and a blog. It’s great that this is happening, but does it really make much of a difference? Consider what I believe could be a watershed event:
A few months ago, JL Grey published a post on his Cool Verification blog entitled The Brewing Standards War - Verification Methodology. As expected, verification engineers chimed in and expressed their ardent opinions and viewpoints. What came next was not expected … stakeholders from Synopsys and Mentor joined the conversation. The chief VMM developer from Synopsys, Janick Bergeron, put forth information to refute certain statements that he felt were erroneous. A marketing manager from Mentor, Dennis Brophy, offered his views on why OVM was open and VMM was not. And Karen Bartleson, who participates in several standards committees for Synopsys, disclosed Synopsys’ plan to encourage a single standard by donating VMM to Accellera.
From what I’ve heard, this was one of the most viewed ASIC related blog postings ever (JL: Do you have any stats you can share?). But did it make a difference in changing the behavior of any of the protagonists? I think it did and here is why:
I’d like to believe that the EDA companies and other suppliers are coming to recognize what mainstream companies have recognized … that the battle for customers is decreasingly being fought with advertisements, press releases, glossy brochures, and animated Power Point product pitches. Instead, as my friend Ron has pointed out, I am able to talk to “passionate content creators who know more about designing chips than any reporter could ever learn”, and find out what they think. Consider these paraphrased excerpts of the cluetrain manifesto : the end of business as usual:
In short, this ASIC revolution will not be televised!!!
harry the ASIC guy
I just attended Aart DeGeus’ keynote address at SNUG 2008 and there were two highlights:
- Will VMM ever be truly open and not just licensed?
- Is there any attempt to speak directly to Mentor and Cadence to try to combine OVM and VMM?
- Can we use VMM with another System Verilog simulator?
Synopsys’ plan is to donate VMM to Accellera and have Accellera drive a standard verification methodology. When asked about working with Mentor/Cadence, Synopsys asked the designers to try to push them to the table within Accellera. I expect this battle will continue.
More later…. harry the ASIC guy
As a veteran ASIC designer … EDA applications engineer … consultant … project manager … biz dev manager … I’ve played a variety of key roles in the development of dozens of complex ASICs and SoCs. I’ve seen the industry from many perspectives … technical, managerial, financial … and I’ve seen what it takes to be successful and how little it takes to fail.
But, what fascinates me the most is the people. It’s the reason I left a desk job doing hands-on design at TRW to become an applications engineer at Synopsys working with people. And with the advent of new internet technologies (Open Source, Web2.0 …) the people are becoming even more important as they find new ways to work together and support each other. And turn the industry on it’s head.
Still, I don’t hear much about the people aspects of ASIC design from EDA vendors or trade publications … it doesn’t sell tools or subscriptions. And I don’t read much from the other industry blogs, many of them excellent for sure, as they focus more narrowly on rapidly evolving EDA technologies like verification.
For this reason, I started theASICguy.com … to share my insights into the people aspects of ASIC engineering for those who, like me, feel they are under-valued. I hope you find these insights to be thought-provoking and of practical value and I welcome your insights and comments. After all, several thousand heads are better than one
harry the ASIC guy
RSS
Outlook 2007
