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Letters to the Editor -
***************************** Letter No. 1 Peggy, Is Freddy doing an around the world thing? I am jealous. Regards, Georgia Marzalek ************************* [Editor's Note – A list of Freddy Santamaria's Summer 2005 Destinations is now available in the Gourmet Corner] ************************* Letter No. 2 Hi Peggy, For your recipe section, I wanted to let you see what our VP of Sales and VP of Marketing do on their day off. Please check out this link. Regards, Jonah Mcleod ************************* Letter No. 3 Hi Peggy, Given the buzz that ESL created at DAC, there should be a lot of interest in this methodology going forward. I hope you find this ESL update to be useful: www.esl-now.com/pdfs/survey_results.pdf Also, during DA, OSCI president Mark Milligan made a great presentation on the many and varied ESL design solutions available today. This presentation is also posted on the web site and may be of interest to you, if you didn't catch it at DAC. We encourage you to visit www.esl-now.com to stay up-to-date on the latest in ESL design methods and tools. [Meanwhile], interesting about the ESL book that is going to be written. Regards, Jean Armstrong ************************* Letter No. 4 Hi Peggy, Thank you for mentioning both design and verification in the context of ESL. So many people forget! Regards, Lori Kate Smith ************************* Letter No. 5 Peggy, I thought you'd be interested in what I saw on the floor at DAC. Both Aart de Geus and Rajeev Madhavan were stating disappointment in DAC traffic. On the floor, most of the big vendors were complaining about a lack of traffic in their booths, lack of qualified leads, etc. Lots of the little companies that are in verification were also saying that the only meetings they were getting were those they set up before DAC. HOWEVER... ESL companies, like Celoxica, were swamped. Power and analysis companies, like Nascentric and Silicon Dimensions, were setting records for the number of qualified leads coming into the presentations and then asking for a private demo. Silicon Dimensions quintupled the attendance of demo suite meetings from last DAC. They had one with a serious player in processors (one of four meetings with that company's staff) that included 25 senior managers. Gangs of Cisco, Intel, IBM and Kawasaki Semi designers were roving the floors overwhelming innovative startups. I haven't seen the interest in innovation and startups like this in 8 or 10 years. One customer I talked with at the Denali party said he had given up on the proprietary tool flows of the majors – [his company] depends on their own internal flows with internally developed tools, and is going to EDA startups (especially ESL and DFM) to fill holes in their flows and holes they perceive in the large vendors' flows. I actually had one new business opp tell me they didn't want PR to bring in leads. They wanted to know what we can do to help them maintain sustained growth with a STRATEGIC PR program, rather than tactical. Sounds really good for EDA, if you ask me. Lou Covey ************************* [Editor's Note – Mr. Covey's firm provides PR counsel for Celoxica, Nascentric, and Silicon Dimensions.] ************************* Letter No. 6 Peggy, Saw your post-DAC story on the TSMC-CDN case. Definitely intriguing and controversial. Regards, Anon ************************* Letter No. 7 Dear Jane Marple, I have read all of your adventures, some multiple times, and must tell you that you are my favorite sleuth. We here in Silicon Valley may seem unaware of what happens in the outside world, but I believe that many people are simply weary of the senseless violence. By focusing on work, we can hope to overcome the senseless acts of politics and create something good. Nevertheless, it is with dismay that I read your account of the ARS session you attended. It's appalling to hear that a speaker said he would 'kill' a journalist, or any person for that matter. Regards, Anon ************************* Letter No. 8 Peggy, I am so amused about the whole Mark Lepedus "I will kill you" story. I don't mean to imply that it was funny for anyone to be threatened, [but] it's just so outrageous that I can't help but laugh in disbelief. Regards, Anon ************************* Letter No. 9 Peggy, I will be interested to read the Semicon review. I was there Wednesday and for the most part I think it was vendors clogging the halls. They were all in suits right? And where were all of the magicians, bad actors, and booth babes (the DAC flash)? The other interesting thing was Cadence and Mentor were sponsors, but not exhibitors? Aprio was the only EDA vendor I found, so they definitely deserve an honorable mention. Regards, Anon ************************* Letter No. 10 Peggy, Here are some purely personal opinions on the topic of fabless companies, IDMs and the industry in general: The industry is bifurcating. Why?? * There are a very few, albeit very large, semiconductor companies that can afford wafers the size of an extra large pizza (450mm) without anchovies, of course. These companies include Intel, which proposed the large-pan version of wafers, and DRAM manufacturers. Most fabless companies cannot afford the 300mm wafers which are the size of a medium pizza. Many IDMs also cannot afford wafers this size. Plus, who wants a 450mm wafer? 200mm wafers work just fine, carry the right cost without the risk, and they provide volumes that hit the sweet spot of a fabless company's model. The crossover from 200mm wafers to 300mm is not expected to occur until 2008 or 2009. Plenty of time to make money on known technologies and see the cost of advanced technologies come down. * There are very few, albeit very large, semiconductor companies that can afford the new equipment shown at Semicon West. The immersion litho equipment introduced costs as much as the entire revenues of some fabless companies, or half of their revenues, or 1/3 their revenues. No matter, they don't have the money. The Result? The few very large, very rich companies will go their merry way and use this new equipment, but even they will find that the costs are too high to bother with if there is no market for their products in these low geometries. The Wild Card - Packaging. * The bifurcation will increase because of new stacked packages and other novel packaging methods like SIPs, that allow companies to put RF, analog, mixed-signal and digital, logic and memory all together in a neat package. So no SOCs required with all their design challenges. Companies can continue to process chips in 200mm wafers, at 0.13um or thereabouts and still provide a system in a package or as a stacked device. The Squeeze. * Fabless companies are going to be squeezed by packaging and technology advancements. Why? * Because they have relationships with foundries, but do not appear to have close relationships with packaging houses. Their foundries do, but not them. So? So, how can fabless companies quickly utilize these new packaging schemes? Unclear. They do not have internal packaging expertise typically. * Moving down the ITRS roadmap is expensive. Fabless companies need to rely on the foundry. Risky. Fabless companies do not have internal foundry expertise. risky. EDA companies have not kept up with the ITRS roadmap. Not good. This leaves the fabless company squeezed between the foundry and the EDA supplier if there's a problem at 90nm, not to mention 65nm. The Quiet Winner. * The IDMs control their design tools, their manufacturing, their packaging/assay and test. They have internal experts. They can move down the roadmap or not, depending on when it suits them. They have a distinct advantage if they can execute. Regards, Barbara Kalkis ************************* Letter No. 11 Peggy, Answers to the OASIS questions 1. Open Artwork System Interchange Standard Regards, Lou Covey ************************* Letter No. 12 Peggy, Congratulations on [EDA Confidential]. I like the nice balance between geekness (EDA) and real life (gourmet). Informative and insightful. EDA needs a breadth of fresh air Best of luck, Lucio Lanza ************************* Letter No. 13 Peggy, Got this from a friend … just seemed apropos given your recent EDA PR column: The Old Poodle A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa, taking her faithful aged poodle named Cuddles, along for the company. One day the poodle starts chasing butterflies and before long, Cuddles discovers that she's lost. Wandering about, she notices a leopard heading rapidly in her direction with the intention of having lunch. The old poodle thinks, "Oh, oh! I'm in deep doo-doo now!" Noticing some bones on the ground close by, she immediately settles down to chew on the bones with her back to the approaching cat. Just as the leopard is about to leap, the old poodle exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard! I wonder if there are any more around here?" Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror comes over him and he slinks away into the trees. "Whew!", says the leopard, "That was close! That old poodle nearly had me!" Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So off he goes, but the old poodle sees him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figures that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here, monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!" Now, the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, "What am I going to do now?" But instead of running, the dog sits down with her back to her attackers, pretending she hasn't seen them yet, and just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says: "Where's that dang monkey? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard!" Moral of this story.. Don't mess with old farts ... age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill! Bullshit and brilliance only come with age and experience! Regards, Anon **************************** And finally ... from Bill Hoolhorst's Monarch Report: "I, on the other hand, am not ashamed to admit that, in addition to the exhibits, I go to DAC to see old friends and colleagues, which is what many do, but few admit to. This, of course, gives me a great excuse to report on the not well covered, but fun side of DAC... the Denali Party. Since the demise of the Cadence, Mentor and Synopsys parties of yesteryear, Denali has become the new kid on the block raising the bar for marketing savvy." "What is interesting is that, unlike past corporate party protocols, this party has not prohibited competitors or vendors from attending. Every one was there, including all the EDA dignitaries. What was even more intriguing was the entertainment. Two of the bands were made up of high-power EDA executives that performed above and beyond what one would ordinarily expect from part time amateur musicians. The band members including notables like Aart De Guess, CEO of Synopsys; Gary Smith, chief analyst at Dataquest; and Jim Hogan, ex-Cadence, now Venture Capitalist, among others." "Frankly, I was blown away... both bands could easily drop their day jobs and make a run on the band circuit."
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