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Author Archives: paulmcl
NXP/Virage
Virage is on a roll right now. Originally a standard cell and memory company, it recently acquired a microprocessor line with ARC and now it has acquired another big increase in its size by taking on a lot of the … Continue reading
Posted in semiconductor
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The Microsoft/T-Mobile fiasco
I talked a couple of weeks ago about how it is necessary to be brutal and cull the managers of internal products in an acquisition otherwise the management of the joint product roadmap would become completely dysfunctional. Unless you’ve been … Continue reading
Posted in semiconductor
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That’s all folks
There was a reason I wrote about biometrics trecently. I have a new job as COO (and VP marketing) at Biogy, which is a biometrics company. Already I’ve become a biometrics bore. But that means I don’t really have time … Continue reading
Posted in security
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Biometrics conference
I was at a biometrics conference in Florida the week before last. The state of the art is much more advanced than I realized in many areas. For example, iris recognition can be done at a distance of a couple … Continue reading
Posted in security
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Acquisitions: cull the managers
When a company acquires another one, not just in EDA, there is often an internal group already doing something similar. For example, Intuit has just acquired mint.com and they already have a product, Quicken Online that competes in pretty much … Continue reading
Posted in management
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Biometrics
What are biometrics? It is authenticating people by some aspect of their body, typically fingerprints (or finger vein), iris scan or voice recognition. I think that it will become much more important in the coming years since it offers a … Continue reading
Posted in security
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The flaw of averages
I’ve been reading a very interesting book called “The Flaw of Averages” by Sam Savage. It looks at why using average data only produces the correct answers in very limited circumstances. The flaw of averages is that plans based on … Continue reading
Posted in book review
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Designing a chip is like…?
You’ve probably tried to explain to somebody the unbelievable scale of what it takes to design a modern chip with hundreds of millions or billions of transistors. But even we have difficulty with numbers when they get that large, like … Continue reading
Posted in marketing
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Interview questions
A friend of mine is interviewing for a marketing position at an EDA startup. I’d better leave everything anonymous to protect the innocent. He (or maybe it was she) asked me what good questions to ask would be. There are … Continue reading
Posted in management
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Why is security so hard?
I’m amazed how much bad practice there is around security. People just aren’t very good at it, and sometimes don’t even realize that there is a security issue to worry about. It is not just that people aren’t good at … Continue reading
Posted in security
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