Author Archives: paulmcl

Startups and large companies: your end of the boat is sinking

Posted on April 10, 2009 by paulmcl

I’ve worked at startups and I’ve worked at larger companies. I even worked at one company, VLSI Technology, where I joined it when it was a pre-IPO startup and left when it was thousands of people in tens of buildings. … Continue reading →

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EDA startups: seven million to takeoff

Posted on April 9, 2009 by paulmcl

A startup EDA company needs about $7M in bookings to become self-sustaining and not require another round of external funding. Curiously, it doesn’t seem to depend all that much on the product provided there is really a market out there, … Continue reading →

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ESL and software signoff

Posted on April 8, 2009 by paulmcl

The DAC newsletter had a recent article on the ESL market. Gary Smith pointed out that one of the reasons that Cadence is struggling is that the fastest growing part of the market has been ESL, the most advanced design … Continue reading →

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Twelve o’clock high

Posted on April 7, 2009 by paulmcl

Three or four times in my life I’ve been given divisions or companies to run that have not been performing. Although it seems like an opportunity like that would be a poisoned chalice, it was actually a no-lose situation. If … Continue reading →

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Guest blog: Doug Fairbairn

Posted on April 6, 2009 by paulmcl

Doug Fairbairn was at Xerox PARC (along with Lynn Conway of Mead & Conway fame) when the VLSI design revolution began. He would go on to be one of the founders of VLSI Technology but he also realized that every … Continue reading →

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Pricing: vases and coffee pots

Posted on April 3, 2009 by paulmcl

My father-in-law was an executive at Wedgwood and responsible, among other things, for pricing every piece of china they made. Wedgwood has recently been run into the ground by Waterford Crystal who had acquired it, and it is now in … Continue reading →

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Technology of SOX

Posted on April 2, 2009 by paulmcl

Sarbanes-Oxley, often abbreviated to SOX, is a set of accounting rules that were introduced by congress in response to the accounting scandals of Enron, Worldcom and their like during the dotcom boom. It is a mixture of different regulations, some … Continue reading →

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Visa. Priceless

Posted on April 1, 2009 by paulmcl

It’s April 1st but apart from being an excuse for a lot of weak mildly humorous blog entries, today is also the day that applications for H-1 visas opens. And probably closes based on historical precedent. The current downturn has lead … Continue reading →

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Process variation: you can’t ignore statistics any more

Posted on March 31, 2009 by paulmcl

I like to say that “you can’t ignore the physics any more” to point out that we have to worry about lots of physical effects that we never needed to consider. But “you can’t ignore the statistics any more” would … Continue reading →

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Follow me

Posted on March 28, 2009 by paulmcl

I’m not sure I really get Twitter completely. I think it’s an age thing. People brought up in Britain never get root beer; people brought up in America never get Marmite. Maybe you have to tweet before the age of … Continue reading →

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