** Aprio Technologies Inc. has announced a new technical advisory board (TAB) to provide input and guidance on Aprio’s long-term product development and research plans. The TAB includes Vassilios Gerousis, former Infineon chief scientist; Warren Grobman, former director of Design to Manufacturing for Motorola; William Ho, founder of Ceder Technology and Archer Systems which were acquired by Synopsys; and Kees Vissers, Principal Engineer, Xilinx Research.

Mike Gianfagna, Aprio President and CEO, is quoted: "Aprio's development staff includes some of the best and brightest in the industry. And like most smart, creative people, they welcome the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from other talented and capable individuals. This advisory board will serve that function while also giving us deeper insight into the critical DFM requirements across semiconductor design and manufacturing, It's an honor to have professionals of this caliber join our advisory board."

** eASIC Corp. announced the expansion of its products into Korea by way of a partnership with ADT, Co Ltd, (Advanced Design Technology, Korea). ADT says it will sell eASIC’s structured ASIC products in Korea and also provide design services and support to customers. Per the Press Release: "This expansion is part of eASIC’s aggressive growth plans for Asia Pacific and inline with its channel distribution sales strategy. "

Salah Werfelli, eASIC Executive Vice President of Strategic Business Worldwide, is quoted in the Press Release: "We realized an increasing demand in Korea for rapid-turn and low-cost configurable logic solution. eASIC’s NRE-free offering allows for ‘no-barrier design start’ and enables quick ramp to volume production. Our innovative products can now be delivered with comprehensive local support and design services in the local language."

Sang Jo, ADT Executive Vice President, is also quoted "We believe that semiconductor design is the foundation of our country’s technology and ADT is aimed at contributing to construct a world-class semiconductor production with superior customer service."

** EDN Magazine announced the winners of its 15th Annual EDN Innovation Awards. Also announced were awards for the most outstanding contributed articles of the year and the "best-of-the-best" winners over the contest's 15-year history. Winners of this year's contest are: Susanne Paul, Silicon Laboratories, Atheros Communications, AMCC, Matrix Semiconductor; National Semiconductor; National Instruments, Virtual Silicon Technology, Knowles Acoustics, Enpirion, Power-One, Intel, Texas Instruments, Tektronix, Eric Bogatin, PhD, Synergetix; and Gene Garat, Mentor Graphics.

** Emulation and Verification Engineering (EVE) has named Alan Lipinski as Vice President of U.S. Sales, reporting to company CEO & President Luc Burgun. Most recently, Lapinski was Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Business Development at Sequence Design. Before joining Sequence, Lipinski was with Cadence Design Systems, Virtual Silicon Technology, Dazix & Exemplar Logic (both part of Mentor Graphics, Meta Software (part of Synopsys), Computervision (acquired by Parametric Technology Corp.), Fairchild Semiconductor; and GenRad, (now part of Teradyne). Lipinski has a BSEE from Southern Illinois University.

** Ignios Ltd. announced that ARTech Ltd. will provide "geographic sales representation" for the company in Israel. Additionally, the company announced that Keith Ahluwalia has joined the company as System Architect. Ignios CEO Rick Clucas also announced that the company with work with "local expertise … and use a mixture of direct and third-party sales and support channels according to market demand" in the various geographies the company is working within.

** Open-Silicon, Inc. announced that Edward Ross, President Emeritus of TSMC North America has been appointed to the Open-Silicon Board of Directors. Ross is also a member of the Board of Directors of three public companies, California Micro Devices (CAMD), Volterra Semiconductor Corporation (VLTR) and RAE Systems (RAE). He received his PhD from Princeton in 1969. Prior to joining TSMC, he was with Synopsys as a Senior Vice President, and prior to Synopsys, he was with Cirrus Logic as President of the Technology and Manufacturing Group.

Naveed Sherwani, President and CEO, Open-Silicon, is quoted in the Press Release: "In his role on our Board, Dr. Ross has committed to taking an active role in bringing affordable, predictable and reliable ASICs to the industry through the Open-Silicon model. As President Emeritus of the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, Dr. Ross's tremendous experience in ASIC production and operations will benefit Open-Silicon's customers and partners."

** Pulsic Ltd. has named Peter Karpinski to serve as Senior Applications Engineer for the company, reporting to Kirti Parmar, Pulsic’s applications director for North America. Karpinski is coming to Pulsic from Cadence Design Systems where he has been since 1997 as a Senior AE. Previously, he worked for Cooper and Chyan Technology before it was acquired by Cadence in 1997. Prior to Cooper and Chyan, Karpinski owned Ridge Designs 1977 to 1993. Previously, he also worked as a PC designer for National Semiconductor. Karpinski has a B.A. from U.C. Santa Barbara.

** Tensilica, Inc. announced that Dan Weed has been named Vice President of Customer Engineering. Weed has 25+ years' experience in design center management, marketing and engineering. Most recently, he was corporate vice president of strategic marketing at Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Prior to that, he held a number of positions at LSI Logic, including senior vice president of worldwide customer engineering and senior vice president, system design automation. He joined LSI Logic after working at Symbios Logic, which was acquired by LSI Logic. Weed started out with design center and engineering positions at Fujitsu Microelectronics, Texas Instruments, Data General and California Devices.

** Tensilica also announced that it has signed an agreement with NEC Electronics America, Inc. that says NEC Electronics America will distribute Tensilica’s Xtensa V configurable processors directly to NEC Electronics America’s ASIC customers. Per the Press Release: "Through this partnership agreement, Tensilica aims to expand its customer base while NEC Electronics America augments its strong IP portfolio for its SoC customers."

** Tensilica also announced the "expansion of the company’s presence in the Asian market with the opening of its first office in China."

The company says a grand opening event, attended by government officials and representatives from major corporations took place on March 9th at the Great Wall Sheraton in Beijing, China. Speakers and dignitaries included: Zhang Jingan, General Secretary of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Beede Christopher and Ross Adam, Representatives of Robert Wang, Counselor for Economic Affairs, U.S. Embassy, Chen Xiaonan, Vice Director of Semiconductor Group of Beijing Government.

Chris Rowen, President and CEO of Tensilica, is quoted: "We are pleased to establish a direct presence in China where we can work closely with the systems and semiconductor companies to help them differentiate and innovate using our automated design approach."

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Editor's note – Now if we could just differentiate between those who advocate for free market economic policies and those who advocate for controlled, government-dictated economic policies.

But that would be a discussion for Economics Confidential, not EDA Confidential.