Archive for January, 2010

Several people have asked me to write about my new car and post some pictures here. If you’re tired of hearing about it, be sure to stop reading now. I’m having a whole lot of fun with this vehicle, and it doesn’t take much to get me to talk about it.

Chevrolet’s engineers designed an amazing automobile that is in very high demand. People have been waiting 6 months or more for their orders to be delivered from the GM factory in Oshawa, Canada. For a period of time last year, the 2010 Camaros were as difficult to get as the new Priuses. I was lucky enough to wait only 7 weeks.

Two Saturdays ago I picked up my brand new 2010 2SS Camaro. It’s a limited Transformers edition “Bumblebee” – right out of the movie – with special emblems and logos that charm kids and adults who are kids at heart (like me). It has just about every feature you can imagine, and under the hood is a 6.2 liter 400hp V8 engine. (Believe it or not, it’s rated at 25 mpg on the highway.) There must be a quite a large number of ICs performing all sorts of tasks to make my Camaro safe and powerful. And to the delight of my fellow blogger, Eric Huang of “To USB or Not to USB”, there’s a USB port in the console.

This time, however, I didn’t want a standard. I chose the automatic transmission. A few of my friends scoffed. I did give up a little bit of horsepower, but 400 is plenty for me! If I feel like shifting manually, I can do it with the buttons on the steering wheel that remind me of a video game controller. Plus, the automatic transmission came with a remote starter. I can’t wait to surprise parking lot onlookers.

Enough talk – here are a few pictures of my Bumblebee on the showroom floor, right before I drove it home.

Congratulations to Accellera’s Verification IP Technical Subcommittee (VIP-TSC) for reaching yet another milestone on its journey to achieve harmony among verification standards. The near-unanimous desire and commitment to create a Universal Verification Methodology is an indication of the still growing need for collaboration among verification engineers, verification IP vendors, service providers, and tool suppliers – and their faith in Accellera to do so as an open standards organization.

In my October 1, 2009 blog post, A milestone completed towards verification standards, I wrote:

Now it’s time for the group to start working on their “long term” standard. Their efforts will produce a common base class library that can be used in simulators from multiple design automation tool vendors. The common base class library will foster a broad (universal) verification methodology to benefit verification engineers and developers of verification IP.

Again I’m optimistic that the VIP-TSC will provide the industry with an effective verification standard. Hmm. Maybe they will call it the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM).

According to the status report from the VIP-TSC, the next phase of their work is indeed called the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM)!! I’m pretty sure the working group didn’t refer to my post when deciding on a name for the standard, but it’s fun to see a prediction come true nevertheless.

And now it’s time for the group to start working on their “long term” standard. Their efforts will produce a common base class library that can be used in simulators from multiple electronic design automation tool vendors. The common base class library will foster a broad (universal) verification methodology to benefit verification engineers and developers of verification IP.

The VIP-TSC working group that will now tackle UVM appears to be focused on a critical aspect of standardization – delivering not only a specification but also a usable reference implementation. In the short-term phase of their work, they created an interoperability guide, and now they will work on providing a single UVM library that will reflect the best of VMM and OVM. This is what I like about an industry collaboration that’s focused as much on deployment of a standard as it is on the creation of it.

I’m glad to see this open, inclusive, and timely standard coming to life with support from a wide-ranging verification community. Synopsys strongly endorses this UVM effort under Accellera. I encourage the committee to ensure that UVM not only meets immediate requirements but also builds the foundation of an industry-wide verification methodology for years to come.

Overall, big kudos to the working group  for their focus on the long term goals, their dedication, and their hard work. It’s a great way to start 2010!

I’m starting the new year by finishing a project, and it feels great. I posted the first of my “10 Commandments for Effective Standards” way back in February of 2008. Today, I’m completing the series with a concept that summarizes what I’ve learned about the standards game.

The 10th Commandment for Effective Standards is: Know That Standards Have Technical and Business Aspects.

When you think about a standard, the first thing that might come to mind is its technical nature. How can a standard’s working group piece together formats donated from several companies into a single, cohesive standard? How will the standard be implemented into existing algorithms and code? How will customers be able to plug together products that support the standard from different vendors? Which features of the standard must be included in the first version and which can be saved for future revisions?

These are vital questions to be answered, of course. But addressing only the technical aspects of a standard does not ensure that an effective standard will be produced. The business elements have to be considered as well.

Practical questions should be settled during the standardization process – if  not by the working group members, at least within the participants’ own organizations. For instance, how much will modifications to current products cost in order to support the proposed standard? Can new products be developed quickly enough to make use of the standard? Will it be economically feasible for customers to switch to a new standard?

To create an effective standard, not just a technically elegant one, the people working on a standardization effort need to realize – and be able to address – business concerns equally as much as technical concerns. I can think of four ways to meet this requirement.

First, a company can find an employee who has both technical expertise and business savvy to represent the company in the standard’s working group. This person is someone who can navigate his or her way through challenging technical issues as well as complex commercial constraints. It’s true, I know, that individuals who are skilled in two clearly different areas can be hard to find.

A second way to address both technical and business elements of a standard is through “on the job training”. A person working on a standards project can gain expertise in the area that’s not their specialty by watching and learning from others who are part of the project. I admit I learned a lot about the business side of standards by watching my competitors’ behavior.

A third approach is for companies to consciously and actively train their employees who are destined to work on standards projects before they start participating in standards development. This sounds like common sense, of course, but it does require forethought and investment in a training program.

A fourth way to balance technological and business considerations is for companies to send more than one representative to the standard’s working committee. This does mean additional resources must be invested, but it can certainly pay off.

Realizing the technical and business aspects of the standards game will help you be as effective as you can in the standards game. Happy New Year!

P.S. Watch for my upcoming book, “The 10 Commandments for Effective Standards”, from Synopsys Press. I hope it will be published in a few months.