Before I rejoined Cadence, I did a fair bit of writing for SemiWiki. One of the sponsoring companies was Methodics. I lived in San Francisco at 14th street, and Methodics had their office on 9th street, so for once in my life, I could walk from my home to have the discussion before I wrote a blog post.

The CEO of Methodics was a fellow Brit, Simon Butler. That's not the only thing we have in common. Years ago he worked for HLD Systems, which was a company producing a floorplanning tool. Cadence acquired them and so Simon worked here for a time. The same thing happened to me 20 years ago when I was working for Ambit and I ended up in Cadence, where I stayed for over three years.

ESD Alliance Lunch Event

UPDATE: This event has been canceled.

ESD Alliance is hosting an event next month where Jim Hogan will be interviewing Simon with the topic Explore the Path from Bootstrapped Startup to Profitability. In the past, these events have been in the evening, but this time the ESD Alliance is disproving what economists like to call TANSTAAFL. This stands for "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch", and comes from Robert Heinlein's 1966 novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Anyway, the ESD Alliance will give you a free lunch (provided your employer is a member of the ESD Alliance or SEMI).

Quick details: It will take place on Friday, April 3, registration opens at 11:30am, and 12:00pm to 1:30pm is lunch and Jim's conversation with Simon. It will be held at SEMI HQ, which is at 673 South Milpitas Boulevard, in Milpitas. Although the event is probably free for you, you should register (I'll put a link at the end of this post). Otherwise, you might discover another principle of economics, to do with demand and supply inelasticity. Once lunch runs out, there is no more, even if you pay.

As it happens, a few days after the Alliance announced the event, I was having lunch with Jim in Los Gatos. One of the things I asked him about was the event. He is an investor in Methodics (and on their board). Methodics describe themselves as an IP life-cycle management company (IPLM). Using those initials is deliberate since it ties them into the whole enterprise software segment known as PLM, which stands for Product Lifecycle Management. My last job in Cadence back in the early 2000s was attempting to integrate Cadence's services (we were big in methodology and design services back then) into PLM environments like Dassault 's ENOVIA and PTC's WindChill. We were engaged with companies helping them get designs done, but we also needed to help them get them manufactured, and the PLM companies were the conduit into that for boards. The foundries, then as now, were the conduit for chips, but we already had deep relationships with them.

That all ground to a halt after 9/11. Indeed, I was at a PLM conference in Orlando when it happened. I was stuck in Orlando for three days, and Disneyworld wasn't even open. Two months later, I got laid off in the downturn. Not my best Christmas present ever.

As it turned out, ENOVIA would figure in my life ten years later. I was on the board of a startup called Tuscany Design Automation, which did design lifecycle management for SoC design. Dassault acquired Tuscany in 2012. I was just on the board, so I didn't really have anything to do with the product after that, but the person at Dassault who brought Tuscany into the organization at Dassault was Mike Munsey. But he left Dassault and is now the VP Marketing at...Methodics.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (from Les Guêpes, 1848 by Karr). The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jim told me that Methodics is focused a lot on IP traceability, keeping track of which IP is used in which designs, and what royalties are due, and perhaps other obligations. He calls this "the last mile", since to the PLM companies and the foundries, a chip is just a chip and they don't look inside. But to the design groups and the companies supplying IP, they need to manage that lifecycle carefully as IP blocks are designed, updated, used in designs, manufactured, and so on.

The ESDA page for the event describes it as:

With Jim navigating, they will explore Simon’s vision and reasons why Methodics pursued this application space. Audience members will learn how Methodics expanded the definition of product lifecycle management (PLM) in the Enterprise Software segment into IPLM for a design-centric view of the semiconductor IP lifecycle. Along the way, as they will explain, Methodics became profitable and paved PLM’s “last mile,” allowing for the completion of the “digital thread” from system design all the way to the semiconductor level.

The ESD Alliance page for the event includes a link for registration. As I said above, it is free for ESD Alliance and/or SEMI members, $25 otherwise.

SEMI Breakfast Forum

UPDATE: This event has been canceled.

By the way, since the ESD Alliance is a part of SEMI, so if your company is in the ESD Alliance, it is also a part of SEMI and you can attend any SEMI event for the member price.

There is one of those coming up later this month, a SEMI Breakfast Forum. There's no such thing as a free breakfast, it will cost you $55 ($75 for non-SEMI members, $15 for students). The title is Wafers to Wall Street, a Semiconductor Outlook: Emerging Technology and Markets. it is 7:30am to 11:30am on Friday, March 27. Here are full details, including a link to registration. I will be there.

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