People

August 12, 2005


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Magma Design Automation, Inc. announced that it's working with Peking University to create an IC design lab for training professors and engineering students in techniques and technology for developing microelectronics. Magma says it will donate licenses of its software including Blast Create, Blast Plan Pro, Blast Fusion, Blast Noise and Blast Power, and also will provide technical support to the university. Not surprisingly, the goal of the joint effort is "to increase the IC design talent pool in China."

Hao Yilong, Professor and Dean of the Institute of Microelectronics at the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Peking University, is quoted: "China's demand for ICs is growing faster than any other region, so it is critical that we develop expertise on the most advanced IC design technology. We selected the Magma software as the foundation of our IC design laboratory as it has been proven to address nanometer design challenges."

Chris Yih, Vice President of Asia-Pacific Operations for Magma, is also quoted: "We're very pleased to have the opportunity to work with Peking University to train the faculty and students as future generations of IC designers."

And just so you know … "Peking University is a comprehensive and national key university consisting of 30 colleges and 12 departments. The university emphasizes basic sciences with special attention to the development of applied sciences. At present, Peking University has 216 research institutes and research centers, and there are two national engineering research centers, 81 key national disciplines, 12 national key laboratories. The university combines research on important scientific issues with the training of personnel with high-level specialized knowledge and professional skill as demanded by the country's socialist modernization. It strives for simultaneous improvements in teaching and research work, and also the promotion of interaction and mutual promotion among various subjects."

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new business cards …

** Calypto Design Systems, Inc. has appointed two new members to the company’s technology advisory board (TAB) including Edmund Clarke, FORE Systems Professor of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, and Farid Najm, Professor and Vice Chair of the University of Toronto’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.

Per the Press Release: "Dr. Clarke is considered to be a pioneer in formal verification. His research in 1981 led the way for the use of model checking in hardware verification. He has also received an ACM Kanellakis Award for the development of symbolic checking and an IEEE Harry H. Goode Memorial Award for significant and pioneering contributions to formal verification of hardware and software systems.

Also per the Press Release: "An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Najm has made seminal contributions over the last 15 years to practical techniques for modeling and estimation. His pioneering work on static techniques for power analysis and high-level modeling are part of industrial practice today. His current research is focused on emerging problems in the areas of power, timing, and variability."


** Golden Gate Technology Inc. announced that William Ruby has been appointed Vice President of Marketing for the company, reporting to CEO Dennis Heller. Most recently, Ruby was a Director of Marketing at Cadence Design Systems. Previously, he held senior marketing positions at Cadence, Synopsys/EPIC, and Sequence. Earlier, he was an IC designer at Siemens, and a member of the first Pentium microprocessor design team at Intel. Ruby has a BA in Physics from UC Berkeley, an MSEE from the University of Southern California, and an MBA from San Jose State University.


** SIGMA-C has named Peter Feist as CEO. Previously, Feist was General Manager and COO. In realigning the executive team, the company also says that previous CEO Christian Kalus will now serve as President and CTO. And because good things always come in threes – in addition, the company has changed its legal form from SIGMA-C GmbH Software to SIGMA-C Software AG.

Per the Press Release: "A founding CEO of SIGMA-C, [previously] Dr. Kalus served as founder and CEO of ISI Systems, assistant professor of crystallography at the University of Munich, and corporate researcher [at] Siemens AG, where he helped develop methods for quality control in ICs. Dr. Kalus has written and co-authored many technical papers in the field of microlithography, with an emphasis on optical microlithography simulation and e-beam proximity effect correction. In 2002, he received the Georg Waeber Innovation Award for Microelectronics in recognition of his work on rigorous electromagnetic field simulation." Kalus has a diploma degree in crystallography and a PhD from the University of Munich."

Also per the Press Release: "CEO Peter Feist is responsible for leading SIGMA-C as it expands to the DFM market. Previously, he served as general manager and chief operating officer at SIGMA-C; president and CEO at PACT XPP Technologies AG; president and CEO at Chameleon Systems Inc.; vice president of worldwide marketing at QuickLogic Corp.; senior vice president of marketing at GateField Corp.; and regional manager in Europe at Odeum Microsystems, a subsidiary of Hyundai's Digital Media Division. His early career [included] marketing and management positions at LSI Logic." Feist has an MSEE degree from the University of Dortmund.


** Synopsys, Inc. announced that Nelson Pratt has been named Vice President of Marketing Communications. He has 20 years' experience in technical and brand marketing, including executive positions at Open Source Development Labs, InFocus Systems, IBM's Networking Division, and Novell. Synopsys says that in each position, Pratt "demonstrated success in integrating product-level marketing with corporate brand positioning and overall strategic objectives."

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In the realm of oil & gas …

Nallatech announced that R. Associates Inc. has joined Nallatech’s Channel Partner Program. The companies say they have "successfully implemented FPGA-based computing solutions to evaluate critical measurements in seismic processing including Kirchoff pre-stack time and depth migration series, as well as wave equation studies. The collaboration is evaluating ways to process the terabyte-sized data from algorithms found in wave equation migration processing."

Herb Riley, President of R. Associates, is quoted: "Nallatech’s FPGA solutions meet and often exceed R. Associates customers’ needs for reduced cost, footprint, efficient use of space and faster processing. As an example, their ability to quickly develop algorithms for our demanding pre-stack time migration application has resulted in a 17-to-1 increase in performance. We anticipate that the leading companies in oil and gas exploration will want to receive the business benefits of being the first to offer this state-of-the art FPGA computation speed with a lower total cost of ownership than found in their previous applications."

Hopefully all of this will bring down the price of a gallon of gas.