Author Archives: paulmcl

Running a salesforce

Posted on September 16, 2009 by paulmcl

If you get senior enough in any company then you’ll eventually have salespeople reporting to you. Of course if you are a salesperson yourself this won’t cause you too much problem; instead, you’ll have problems when an engineering organization reports … Continue reading →

Posted in security | Comments Off

Mergers and acquisitions

Posted on September 15, 2009 by paulmcl

There were three interesting acquisitions in the last week or so: Apache aquired Sequence, Synfora acquired Esterel Studio and Global Foundries acquired Chartered. The Apache/Sequence acquisition is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is that both companies are private and … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, management | Comments Off

Semiconductor cost models

Posted on September 14, 2009 by paulmcl

One of the most important and under-rated tasks in a semiconductor company is creating the cost model. This is needed in order to be able to price products, and is especially acute in an ASIC or foundry business where there … Continue reading →

Posted in semiconductor | Comments Off

Friday puzzle: states

Posted on September 11, 2009 by paulmcl

Today’s puzzle is a word puzzle: find a pair of US states whose letters can be mixed together and re-arranged to make a different pair of US states. Last week’s puzzle was the cucumbers drying in the sun. There were … Continue reading →

Posted in puzzles | Comments Off

Chips and change

Posted on September 11, 2009 by paulmcl

I’ve been reading an interesting book on the semiconductor industry. It’s called Chips and Change by Clair Brown and Greg Linden. I got sent a review copy (there are some tiny advantages to being a blogger) and I’m not sure … Continue reading →

Posted in book review | Comments Off

Hunters and farmers: EDA salesforces

Posted on September 10, 2009 by paulmcl

I wrote recently about mergers in the EDA space, mainly from the point of view of engineering which tends to end up being double booked keeping the existing standalone business going while at the same time integrating the technology into … Continue reading →

Posted in sales | Comments Off

CEO pay

Posted on September 9, 2009 by paulmcl

If you are an investor, what do you think the best predictors for success for a startup are? If you could pick only one metric, which one would you use? Peter Thiel, who invested in both PayPal and Facebook so … Continue reading →

Posted in investment | Comments Off

Guest blog: Steve Schulz

Posted on September 8, 2009 by paulmcl

Today’s guest blog is by Steve Schulz. These days Steve runs the Silicon Integration Initiative, Si2. Prior to joining Si2 Steve was VP corporate marketing for BOPS. Prior to that he had a long tenure of nearly 20 years at … Continue reading →

Posted in guest blog | Comments Off

Friday puzzle: cucumbers

Posted on September 4, 2009 by paulmcl

Today’s problem: on a sunny day a greengrocer places 200 lbs of cucumbers in front of his store. At the start of the day they are 99% water. He doesn’t sell any all day but it is a really hot … Continue reading →

Posted in puzzles | Comments Off

Kindle

Posted on September 4, 2009 by paulmcl

I have had an Amazon Kindle for a few months now. It’s not perfect by any means but I really like it and for some sorts of books I prefer to read on the Kindle to on paper. The first … Continue reading →

Posted in culture | Comments Off