Author Archives: paulmcl

Friday puzzle: switches

Posted on June 12, 2009 by paulmcl

By the way, I moderate comments on the puzzles, just to stop people posting the answer in the comments and so making it hard to avoid seeing accidentally if you want to try the puzzle yourself. So if you comment … Continue reading →

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Chinese

Posted on June 12, 2009 by paulmcl

I’ve been learning Chinese for some time. Most people know three things about Chinese: it’s a tonal language, it’s hard to read all those pictogram thingies, and it must be really complicated. Well, the first two of those things are … Continue reading →

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Channel choices

Posted on June 11, 2009 by paulmcl

Should a separate product be sold through a separate channel? If a new product is pretty much more of the same then the answer is obviously “no.” If the new product is disruptive, sold to a different customer base, or … Continue reading →

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The corporate CAD cycle

Posted on June 10, 2009 by paulmcl

Many things in business go in cycles. One in EDA is what I call the “corporate CAD cycle”. It goes like this. I’m sure a similar dynamic plays out in other industries too. A large multidivisional semiconductor company has dozens … Continue reading →

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Term sheets

Posted on June 9, 2009 by paulmcl

What is a term sheet? If you raise money from a venture capitalist (or an experienced angel) then the most important conditions for the investment will be summarized in a term-sheet. It sounds like this should be a simple document … Continue reading →

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CEO: a dangerous job

Posted on June 8, 2009 by paulmcl

Why do so few startup CEOs last the distance? The Bill Gates, Michale Dell and Scott McNealys who take their companies all the way from the early days as a tiny startup all the way up to enormous multi-division companies … Continue reading →

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Friday puzzle: impossible

Posted on June 5, 2009 by paulmcl

Last week’s puzzle was to calculate the volume remaining after a hole 6” long is drilled through a sphere. When I was a math nerd in high-school I actually knew how to do the triple integral in spherical polar coordinates … Continue reading →

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Lightweight hiking

Posted on June 5, 2009 by paulmcl

A few years ago I walked the John Muir Trail in the highest parts of the Sierra Nevada mountains from Yosemite Valley to Whitney Portal with my then-girlfriend. Actually, the trail technically ends at the top of Mount Whitney but … Continue reading →

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Patents, CDMA, trolls and standards

Posted on June 4, 2009 by paulmcl

CDMA is also another interesting oddity from a patent point of view. Most patents are tiny pieces of incremental innovation that form the many little pieces you need to build complex technological products. You can’t build a semiconductor without violating … Continue reading →

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Guest blog: Lynn Conway

Posted on June 3, 2009 by paulmcl

Today’s guest blog is by Lynn Conway, who is the Conway of "Mead and Conway," the book on VLSI Design that first moved VLSI Design from its priestly guilds within a few semiconductor companies and into first the universities and … Continue reading →

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