An analogy of “three big dogs hovering over a bowl of dog food” has been used to explain the business challenges of the EDA industry. This oft-cited quote is attributed to Cadence’s founder and first CEO, Mr. Joe Costello, debating how EDA had become a fixed-pie industry on a panel at DAC in 1995. For history buffs, amusingly, the response from Synopsys’ CEO – then and now – Dr. Aart de Geus, was “If you think of yourself as a dog, you only deserve dog food!” Surely, the quote was highlighted out of context; but it leaves one with the nagging question of how does an industry go about growing the pie rather than redistributing the fixed pie? Of course, there are many well-proven business strategies for doing so, and standards is certainly one of them.

An ecosystem built around technologies that are based on support for industry standards has many advantages. Even while pointing to Apple’s success through a strategy of controlling the entire ecosystem, one must realize that all those consumer devices connect through well-known standards such as Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11n) and USB, and the iPhone connects through different phone carriers. It will also be interesting to watch whether Android can topple Apple again like the IBM PC compatibles did decades ago.

The point is that standards – specifically, standards-based interoperability – enable two or more industries/industry segments to interact with each other to provide a desired and complete solution, thereby growing and benefiting each of the industries.

However, the mere creation or existence of a standard does not by itself grow the market. In fact, until it is widely adopted, it is difficult to say whether there is actually a standard or not. To produce an actual standard, adoption of the standard needs to be shepherded through product introductions, education, books, conferences, white papers, and so on. It’s also necessary to nurture new business models, forge partnerships, and continue on an evolutionary roadmap for a period of time before it becomes apparent that the use of certain technology has become a standard. The length of this time varies by industry and degree of difficulty to implement the standard, and in the EDA industry it is usually at least 2 years.

A good example of an EDA standard that grew the pie is SystemVerilog. Based on contributed technologies, it took (arguably) about 3 years to complete and have serious adoption begin. At present, there are at least 125 products, solutions, and training offerings that make up the SystemVerilog-enabled market.

Feeding more dogs with a bigger pie makes everyone – suppliers, customers, and investors – happier.

After a long summer break and time for a blogging platform upgrade, The Standards Game is back in action. My blog may have had a quiet period, but the world of standards kept on turning. It’s hard to believe that Fall is here already and so many interesting events took place during The Standards Game’s vacation.

Here are a few highlights of what happened over the past few months.

Accellera and OSCI announced their plans to merge into a single organization. The new organization will combine the experience and resources of both bodies to broaden its benefit to the electronics industry. System-level design – and the standards that support it – is an integral part of System-on-Chip (SoC) design. A single standards-setting organization that addresses the interoperability requirements from the industry.

There was significant movement in the low-power standards arena. Si2 announced that they contributed relevant parts of the CPF 2.0 specification to the IEEE P1801 (UPF) working group, and  Cadence is also participating in the working group. “Convergence” is a term we’ve talked about for at least 4 years. I hope it will finally become a reality.

The Design Automation Standards Committee (DASC) held its annual election for officers. Each office is a two-year team, with two officers being elected each year. This year the positions of Chair and Vice-Chair were up for election. Stan Krolikowski was re-elected as DASC chair, and Yatin Trivedi was elected as Vice-Chair, Kathy Werner remains as Secretary and Victor Berman remains as Treasurer. (BTW, renewing and new members of DASC should pay their annuals dues before the end of 2011. At 40 $USD, it’s a bargain.)

Planning for DVCon 2012, which will include the latest in Accellera/OSCI standards, technical papers, industry-leader panels, and methodology tutorials, is well underway. Paper and panel selections are being finalized by the Techical Program Committee. Aart de Geus, CEO of Synopsys, will be the keynote speaker. (I’m the General Chair.)

Finally, the annual IEEE election was held and I was voted in as the 2012 President-Elect of the IEEE Standards Association. I will be the IEEE-SA President in 2013-14, at which time I will also have a seat on the Board of the IEEE itself. It’s going to be a great experience, I’m truly honored, and I’ll work hard to keep and increase the effectiveness of IEEE standards.

As always, I welcome your observations, ideas, and questions as we continue to participate in the standards game.

It’s been never-ending excitement in the standards game since September 2007 when this blog began. After nearly 4 years, it’s time for a short vacation from blogging. I’m certainly not leaving the standards arena. Instead, I’ll likely be doing even more with the IEEE Standards Association. I’m also starting to work with people who are entering the world of standards and are looking for advice and guidance.

I”ll be around in many places. Listen as I host interesting guests on Conversation Central. Follow me on Twitter. See what we’re up to on Synopsys’ Facebook page. Connect with me on LinkedIn.

In the Fall, I promise I’ll be back. There will be interesting standards topics to write about. Hint: IEEE 1801 (UPF) and CPF.

Have a great summer, everyone!

We have a great lineup of guests for you on Conversation Central at the 48th Design Automation Conference. Join us in the audience in the front of Synopsys’ main booth to see the shows and talk with the guests. If you’re not at DAC, you can watch the video sessions live-streamed to our Facebook page. See the schedule below.

Dubbed “The Voices of DAC”, all shows will be recorded and published afterward for listening and viewing at your convenience. You can find the shows on iTunes (or search the iTunes store for “Conversation Central”) and on our show notes site www.synopsys.com/blogs/conversationcentral. Additionally, video Conversation Central shows can be seen on Synopsys’ Facebook page www.facebook.com/SynopsysInc and Synopsys’ YouTube channel www.youtube.com/synopsystv.

In addition to Conversation Central, we’ll give you a unique networking card with a QR code for your LinkedIn profile. Use your card to connect with colleagues and friends during the cocktail receptions on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 6 to 7pm on the Garden Terrace on level 2 of the San Diego Convention Center. Continue using your card to connect with people throughout DAC and afterward.

If you’re a fan of Twitter or would like to experiment with it, come play our Twitter Trivia game. There will be two ways to win:

- Pick up a game card in Synopsys’ booth and find secrets to tweet at special DAC events.

- Tweet @synopsys and/or tag tweets with #snps from June 5 through June 9. Be sure to include #48DAC in your tweets. That way, you can win even if you’re not at DAC!

Come to Synopsys’ booth anytime to get a free copy of the newest book from Synopsys Press, “Social Media Geek-to-Geek: Practical Insights for Technology Marketers”. The author, Kathy Schmidt Jamison, will sign your book on Monday at 4:30, Tuesday at 11:30, and Wednesday at 10:30.

Conversation Central schedule for the 48th DAC:

The 48th Design Automation Conference is almost here. Again, there will be several activities of interest for both those of you who want to learn about standards and those who regularly play the standards game.

Standards are very important to EDA and semiconductor design industry. For 12^th year, Synopsys is organizing The Standards Booth (#3328) at DAC where you will find Synopsys along with its partners demonstrating interoperable flows using industry standards. The four pods represent widely used standards from Accellera, IEEE, OSCI, IPL, and IEEE-ISTO. The Standards Booth will be located right next to Synopsys main booth, so it will be easy to find.

Of course, it won’t be only standards and interoperability talk in The Standards Booth. We’ll make this a lot of fun with “Prize Frenzy” where every half hour we’ll have a drawing for an iPod Nano. A different color iPod Nano every day. That’s a lot of Nanos. (Or is it Nanoes?) To win one of them, come to the booth and collect your game card. Visit all four pods in the booth, fill out a short questionnaire (really short), and you are on your way to all the excitement of the prize drawing – every half hour, enter as many times as you wish. How cool is that?

On Wednesday morning, come to Marriott (Marina Ballroom F) and attend Synopsys’ Interoperability Breakfast: “On Safari with Custom Design Interoperability & Interconnect Modeling Standards.” Listen to leading users talk about their experience with use of interoperable PDKs (iPDKs) and Interconnect Technology Format (ITF). We’ll also announce the recipient of this year’s Tenzing Norgay Interoperability Achievement Award.

I will be right next door, in Synopsys’ main booth, if you’d like to stop by and say hello. We’ll have “Meet the Bloggers” periodically in the Conversation Central area – left front corner as you face the booth.

To get you in the mood for The Standards Booth, listen to the theme song from the first ever Standards Booth, “My Flow’s in Jeopardy”.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’m not sure what evolves faster, semiconductor technology or social media. One thing is certain – they both change quite rapidly. In the Electronic Design Automation industry, Twitter has caught on over the past two years or so. (Moore’s Law-ish?)

One of the most valuable aspects of Twitter is that millions of people are constantly posting information (or misinformation or non-information). All that information is searchable. Twitter users can make their posts easier to find by including a “hashtag” in them. A hashtag is simply a keyword, preceded with the hash symbol (#), that identifies the post as being related to a specific topic.

As more of us began talking about EDA on Twitter, and as we became experienced users of this interesting communication channel, we began including a unique hashtag in our posts (tweets). We chose the obvious, #EDA. Life in Twitterville was good, and we could find conversations about EDA easily.

Recently, people noticed that #EDA was being used in tweets that had nothing to do with Electronic Design Automation. They showed me tweets about the Economic Development Act of 1965, a book about psychology by a person whose first name is Eda, and countless tweets written in different,  non-English languages (I’d print them, but I don’t know what they say; I *do* know they’re not about designing chips).

#EDA had finally become too diluted for several of us in Electronic Design Automation to be useful anymore. (If you’d like to see the dilution, type #EDA into the box at search.twitter.com.) A popular and respected marketing consultant, Daniel Payne (@marketingeda), asked me for help in establishing a new hashtag for the EDA industry. He suggested #SemiEDA, and I agreed that it would be unique and readily associated with our industry. A quick search of Twitter showed that no one was using it.

We started to spread the word that #SemiEDA is a good replacement for #EDA. I expected it would take a while for #SemiEDA to become a standard hashtag that most everyone in EDA would adopt. I’ve been quite surprised, however, to see how fast it’s being embraced. Less than 24 hours after I tweeted “Announcing a new hashtag…”, more than 30 posts had been made that potentially reached 3,600 people!

At the time of this blog post, #SemiEDA is being adopted by more and EDA Twitter users. And their posts are quickly discoverable, unlike those now buried in search results for #EDA.

As the momentum of #SemiEDA builds, we’re continuing to include #EDA in tweets along with #SemiEDA. This can help guide people to the new hashtag in a much less disruptive way than immediately abandoning #EDA.

So welcome to the new standard for Electronic Design Automation on Twitter – #SemiEDA.

BTW, in doing research for this article, I wondered when I first started using Twitter. It was December 19th, 2008. I did not begin with the standard, “I just signed up for Twitter”.

Two of my (many) passions are Twitter and standards. Recently, I completed a fun project that combined both. But in an old-fashioned way. The publisher of the THINKaha book series encouraged me to write a book for their “#XYZ tweet” collection. Each of these short books contain 140 bite-sized ideas on a topic that lets the reader get a quick taste of the subject and/or the author.

I agreed, and the” #STANDARDS tweet” book was born. Tweets in print are rather odd, but it was a fun experience. Thanks again to Rick Jamison (@rickjamison), there are some clever cartoons that adorn the text. Also, thanks to JL Gray (@jlgray) for writing the Foreword and supplying the funniest headshot I’ve ever seen. Too bad I couldn’t bring myself to use it – instead, the book has JL’s officially nice face in the front matter.

If you’d like a free copy of this little book, post a comment, send me an email, connect with me on LinkedIn, message me on  Facebook, or tweet an @mention or DM, and I’ll put one in the mail for you.

Happy Tweeting and Happy Standardization!

@karenbartleson

Everyone is talking about the cloud and we’d like to hear from you. Complete our 10 minute survey and you could win an iPad2. David Hsu – our cloud computing blogger – has the survey link in his latest post here.

In addition to the technology and business aspects of cloud computing, there is an important element that will be required at some point in time as well – standards.

Today, at least 3 interesting articles were published about cloud standards. The IEEE Standards Association recently announced new projects under its Cloud Computing Initiative. Quickly, a skeptic from InfoWorld wrote about his concerns about the success of this effort. He made some very good points about the need for user demand and the maturity (not yet) of the cloud industry.

The group TechAmerica has formed a commission to make recommendations to the government on how the government can optimize its use of cloud-computing technologies.

IBM is backing yet another (its own) council for for cloud computing standards. (Typical in the standards game, the council was formed without including IBM’s biggest cloud rivals.)

A couple of years ago, a wiki was created in an attempt to document all the activities underway for cloud standards. More than a dozen organizations have jumped in. This wiki might be a good tool for tracking progress.

While I probably won’t be directly involved in the development (and sure-to-be politics) of standards for cloud computing, I will certainly be an interested spectator.

Nominations are now open for the 2011 Tenzing Norgay Interoperability Achievement Award. You can nominate a friend, competitor, or yourself. The last day for nominations will be April 15, 2011 so don’t delay.

The annual Tenzing Norgay Interoperability Achievement Award, now in its eleventh (!) year, is presented to companies, organizations, universities, or individuals whose work:

· Surpassed common levels of interoperability

· Contributed to overall industry advancement

· Provided a new view of the future

· Ensured customer success

The award was named for the crucial role that Sherpa, Tenzing Norgay, played in the first successful attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. Many people think of Sir Edmund Hillary when they think of a Mount Everest hero. Yet without his faithful Sherpa by his side, Hillary might not have made it to such great heights. Likewise, those who work tirelessly to bring necessary standards and interoperability to industry are often overlooked. The Interoperability Achievement Award recognizes these achievements that are critical to a designer’s success.

To submit a nomination and see past winners, please visit the Tenzing Norgay nomination webpage here.

The award will be presented at the Synopsys Interoperability Breakfast event on Wednesday, June 8, 2011 at the Design Automation Conference in San Diego, CA.

But please don’t nominate me. I already receive plenty of kudos. (Thanks, KC Leung!)

There is more and more talk about the need for standards and interoperability in 3D. We mean 3D ICs – stacking chips in a single package – not to be confused with 3D entertainment which also is looking at creating standards such as those for 3D glasses.

And there is more and more action being taken. Several standards organizations have formed groups to study and/or develop standards for 3D ICs. These include: JEDEC, SEMI, SEMATECH, SIA, SRC, IEEE-SA, IEEE-ISTO, GSA, and Si2. It’s not surprising for a new technology to receive a lot of attention from the standards arena. There are technological and business challenges to overcome that can be helped by the introduction of appropriate standards. As the working groups sort out what’s needed, who will do what, where competition and cooperation should exist, and which standards will be adopted over others, there could be (OK, there likely will be) the usual turbulence that accompanies all standardization journeys.

The topic of 3D IC standards will be one of the discussions that will happen at the 18th Electronic Design Process Symposium (EDPS). The April 7-8, 2011 symposium will be sponsored by three of IEEE’s subgroups: Computer Society of Silicon Valley, Council on Electronic Design Automation, and Design Automation Technical Committee.

I’ve attended EDPS in the past and found it to be especially interesting because of its small, intimate nature. Presenters and attendees are there because they are passionate about their topics. If you’re interested in 3D ICs, you might find value in spending a day in Monterey CA discussing your views and asking questions of other participants.

Other topics at EDPS will include:

• Parallel EDA
• High-Level Design – including Requirements-Driven Design Flows
• Cloud computing – including Software as a Service
• Low-Power Design – with Solution Mapping to 2009 ITRS Roadmap

To see the program schedule and more information: www.eda.org/edps

To register directly: http://edps2011.eventbrite.com

The topic of 3D IC standards is likely to step to the forefront of the standards game in the coming year or two. Fasten your seatbelt.