Author Archives: paulmcl

Why EDA differs from ERP in more than two letters

Posted on January 16, 2009 by paulmcl

What is it about EDA that makes it different from other software businesses? When the CFO of Texas Instruments buys Oracle or SAP he or she doesn’t study what algorithms they use in their relational database. EDA purchasers are the … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, marketing | Comments Off

We are fleas on a sick dog

Posted on January 15, 2009 by paulmcl

Well it was the annual EDAC CEO panel last night. The quality of the food was much better than normal, but it turned out that this was not because the CEOs were predicting a rich future in 2009 but that … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry | Comments Off

Super-models

Posted on January 15, 2009 by paulmcl

I wrote earlier in the week about open source software in EDA, or rather about the lack of it. One area where there is some free and open source software, as well as closed source software, is on that boundary … Continue reading →

Posted in engineering | Comments Off

Intel only needs one copy

Posted on January 14, 2009 by paulmcl

It is obvious that companies make money in EDA only if they sell enough software. One rule of thumb is that EDA companies thrive if each salesperson brings in $2M per year, and they don’t if they only bring in … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, marketing, sales | Comments Off

Where is all the open-source EDA software?

Posted on January 13, 2009 by paulmcl

There is a big cultural difference between tools for IC design and tools for software design. A difference in the way they are developed, the way they are sold, the way they are deployed. I think there are two reasons. … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, engineering | Comments Off

City Slickers marketing

Posted on January 12, 2009 by paulmcl

I have done a fair number of consulting projects for EDA startups and a lot of them start out with what I like to call “City Slickers marketing”, named after the movie City Slickers. For those of you who have … Continue reading →

Posted in marketing | Comments Off

Molten lava

Posted on January 9, 2009 by paulmcl

I was going to write an entry about how it didn’t look like Magma (NASDAQ: LAVA) was going to survive, what with losing cash, a lot of debt due, and not much in the bank. Employees don’t like it when … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry | Comments Off

Guest blogger: Jim Hogan on IP

Posted on January 9, 2009 by paulmcl

This is the first of what I hope will be a regular feature of this blog: guest entries from other people with insight into EDA and the ecosystem around it (venture capital, semiconductor, embedded software…) Jim is one person in … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, guest blog | Comments Off

Three envelopes

Posted on January 9, 2009 by paulmcl

Can there be any subject more boring than revenue recognition for software? If you listen to the conference calls of the public EDA companies, you’ll either hear them discuss or get asked about how much of their business is ratable … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, management | Comments Off

“Put your money where your mouth is”

Posted on January 8, 2009 by paulmcl

Talking of being CEO of Cadence, not many people have been parachuted into running a troubled EDA company. But I have. At the end of 1996 Compass Design Automation was coming up to a fifth successive quarter in which the … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, management | Comments Off