Please see late breaking news re: ESL inserted at the end of this section ...

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** Emulation and Verification Engineering (EVE) announced that Dino Caporossi has joined the company as vice president of corporate marketing. Most recently, Caporossi was Vice President of Marketing at Hier Design, which was acquired in 2004 by Xilinx. He also held senior executive positions at Verplex Systems, acquired in 2003 by Cadence Design Systems. Prior to joining Verplex, Caporossi was at Cadence and Compass Design Automation. Not surprisingly, he has more 20+ years of experience within EDA marketing and electronics design teams. Caporossi has a MSEE from Johns Hopkins University and a BSEE from the University of Maryland.

** Ambric, Inc. has named Jerry Ardizzone to be Vice President of Sales for the new start-up. Previosly, Ardizzone was President of ARM Inc.'s USA operations, and also served as Executive Vice President of ARM's worldwide sales, and as head of ARM's U.S. sales and business development. Prior to ARM, Ardizzone spent 14+ years at Motorola Semiconductor. Ardizzone has a BSEE from DeVry Institute of Technology in Phoenix, AZ.

** The Fab Owners Association announced that Jazz Semiconductor has joined the organization. Jazz says it is "the FOA's first pure-play foundry to join."

L.T. Guttadauro, FOA Executive Association Director, is quoted: "We are pleased to announce the addition of Jazz Semiconductor to our growing list of member companies. The FOA is process- technology independent, focusing on identifying common manufacturing issues and practical solutions for manufactures of semiconductor and MEMS devices."

Scott Silcock, Vice President of Operations for Jazz Semiconductor, is also quoted: "Jazz Semiconductor is pleased to participate and contribute to the ongoing efforts of the FOA in creating a unified front in identifying and resolving complex manufacturing issues and future technology trends." You gotta love that unified front bit.

** Mentor Graphics Corp. announced that it has "donated and received acceptance of its SystemVerilog Assertion (SVA) version of the Open Verification Library (OVL) to Accellera. Mentor Graphics' 0-In verification business unit developed the industry's first and most widely used assertion library for functional verification and is the leading supplier of assertion-based verification (ABV) tools. The donated library is designed for use with multiple verification technologies, including simulation, formal verification and emulation."

The Press Release also notes, "The Accellera OVL committee also approved the creation of a new subcommittee for the OVL-SVA library, to be chaired by Mentor. This subcommittee will be responsible for delivering an Accellera standard library and maintain and enhance the OVL-SVA library over time."

Bryan Bullis, Chairman of the OVL Committee of Accellera, is quoted: "Accellera is pleased to receive this SVA donation from Mentor Graphics. Mentor's strong commitment and leadership in standards, combined with their expertise in assertions, will be invaluable to the committee going forward. This donation provides the foundation for a high-quality, standards-based assertion library solution to improve the verification productivity of all design teams. The Accellera committee, combined with Mentor's commitment to work within the technical committees, will help accelerate the adoption of SystemVerilog and ABV."

** Synopsys, Inc. announced the donation of numerous, diverse technology licenses for the company's products to Southern Methodist University (SMU). SMU says it will use the licenses for "industrial research in embedded system design, as well as for general EDA education."

** Xpedion Design Systems announced new European headquarters with the formation of Xpedion France. The company says, "Xpedion France marks Xpedion’s continued commitment and growth in the European market by adding to its current support in the U.K. and Sweden. The office is located in Limoges and will be managed by Dr. Jean Rousset."

Pete Rodriguez, CEO of Xpedion, is quoted in the Press Release: "Europe has been very important to Xpedion’s growth strategy. We currently have several customers and are growing rapidly in France and across Europe. Xpedion has always been committed to bringing the best products to market with the best customer support. Xpedion France will allow us to better serve our European customers."

Jean Rousset is also quoted: "The collaboration between Xpedion and CNRS has been very productive over the past six years. Xpedion France will allow a larger platform with which to continue this development. We look forward to growing our presence in Limoges and serving the European market."

** Verisity, Ltd. announced on March 30th that its shareholders have approved the proposed acquisition of Verisity by Cadence Design Systems, Inc. The Press Release says, "The acquisition remains subject to satisfaction or waiver of a few remaining closing conditions.

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** Lexar Media, Inc. was awarded $84 million in punitive damages, and then another $84 million in punitive damages, by a jury in San Jose, CA, in the company's case against Toshiba Corp. and Toshiba America Electronic Components, Inc.

Per the Press Release: "The total awarded to Lexar in the case now totals $465.4 million, which is believed to be the largest IP verdict in California history and the third largest IP verdict in the United States. The additional award for punitive damages resulted when the jury found that Toshiba Corporation's actions were oppressive, fraudulent or malicious."

Eric Whitaker, Executive Vice President and General Counsel at Lexar, is quoted: "This verdict sends a clear message that protects all the other companies that don't have the will or means to take on a giant like Toshiba for their fraudulent or abusive business practices. This is a huge victory not just for Lexar, but for innovative companies everywhere. The value of Lexar's inventions has always been and will continue to be at the core of Lexar's business model. Toshiba's main defense attempted to challenge the value of Lexar's IP. The jury's clear reaffirmation of the value of our technology and IP sends a very important signal to our future business partners and licensees."

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Bluespec Decries Industry Obsession with ESL as Xenophobic - English is not an EDA panacea for chip design challenges -

Waltham, Mass. – April 1, 2005 – Bluespec Inc. developer of the only behavioral synthesis solution for control logic and complex datapaths, announced today that it can no longer sit silently by while the EDA industry standardizes everyone on English. The EDA industry is pushing ESL, an acronym for English as a Second Language, as the next important initiative for chip design. Bluespec firmly believes that chip designers should feel comfortable in their native languages, even in the face of conflicting, jingoistic agendas by key industry analysts and market leaders, notably all based in the U.S.

ESL Programs

There has oddly been tremendous confusion and debate about the meaning of ESL. But, it is a well known acronym with a very clear meaning – millions upon millions of people have attended ESL classes, perhaps with some sadly misguided hope that Baywatch might have greater meaning without subtitles (or perhaps just so the subtitles won’t ‘get in the way’). There can be no doubt that English has ‘crossed the chasm’, with over a billion speakers around the world – it may even be becoming a lingua franca – but that doesn’t justify an unabashed push to convert the rest under the banner of better chip design.

This industry initiative demonstrates a lack of creativity to solve real problems coupled with desperation to show action. Recognizing that there is a global push to offshore chip design to teams in Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Seychelles, Jamaica, etc. does not mean that one should throw up one’s hands and push ESL in an effort to communicate with those engineering teams. Besides, why start now? The “mushroom” treatment for engineers has been the preferred management style for all these years. What is wrong with leaving those engineers to themselves, to talk (or not) among themselves, with only the occasional airing?

"A single language is not the panacea for chip design’s challenges. EDA needs to focus instead on solutions that deliver material improvements to the development process," said Bluespec’s spokesperson, attempting the precise diction of Professor ‘enry ‘iggins. “It takes the creativity of a flea to propose an effective alternative. How about this for an idea: why don’t we focus instead on designing above RTL for better productivity and quality? Bluespec has the only solution that can synthesize control logic and complex datapaths from a high-level design specification – if we could just get people off their preoccupation with distractions like conjugation, we could make some real progress.”

Ignores Native English Speaking Engineers

Of course, the main flaw in the ESL initiative is that it summarily ignores the needs of purportedly native English speaking American, Canadian, Australian, and UK-based engineers. While ‘Shall We Dance’ classes abound to offer a second dimension socially, ESL by definition is not applicable to these engineers. Remedial English coursework is appropriate for many, but the EDA powers-at-be have chosen to paper over this gap. If we persist in this course, with ESL, non-native English speakers may speak better English than the native born. How will we secure our beaches then?

Tried Before and Failed

As philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." This is not the first time that a single language has been pushed – and the outcome will undoubtedly be the same. One need only think back to, “Behold, they are one people, and they have one language…Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." By pushing English as the only language, we are only tempting higher forces. Do we really want to wind up on the ‘Daily Show’?

ESL as a Bar to Progress

ESL, coupled with the current unstoppable drive towards standardization, erects an unnecessary barrier to progress. Languages develop only through proprietary extensions, a process completely anathema to ESL. Bluespec, of course, accepts that extensions should not be accepted willy-nilly; but criteria such as semantic content and usefulness to the design and communication process, enable one to distinguish between extensions such as “I was like, oh my God, wow” and “O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention”.

ESL as a Weapon of Exploitation

Bluespec foresees marketing managers, a.k.a. the source of all evil, shamelessly taking advantage of ESL to procure unrealistic schedules from offshore engineers. And, using that information, to threaten even more offshoring! Is the day far off when a marketing manager uses the ambiguity of English to extract more features from an engineering team within the same resources and schedule? Won’t we all be much better off having specification review meetings when the specs are written in Bulgarian?

“This has clearly gotten out of hand,” said one unnamed EDA analyst, who had once been complimented for her speaking skills despite English being her native tongue. “It would be great if people could focus on the real problems in this industry rather than assume everyone just came from their ESL class.”

April Fools.