Cadence Academic Network Blogs

One of the most popular platforms of the whole Internet is undeniably YouTube; this is a place where every user can upload and watch videos about all topics that mankind has ever defined as interesting or worthwhile showing, pretty much everything under the sun. As I’m writing this, the most popular video on YouTube is Baby Shark with over eight billion views, so there must be people who have watched this more than once, since there are only seven billion humans on the planet and not all of them have access to the Internet. If you’ve missed this incredibly popular video, you should check it out, but if you’re not 5 years old, I would recommend James Corden’s version of Baby Shark.    

While you’re visiting YouTube, I’d also recommend visiting Cadence’s channel. Cadence is filming a lot of videos to present our technology, advertise our events, explain the usage of our tools and much more. Many of the videos become a part of the TrainingBytes collection, which can only be watched if you have access to support.cadence.com, but plenty of videos are published on YouTube as well. As every mature platform, YouTube has developed several features for a more user friendly experience, making it easier to find and categorize content like channels, playlists, and subscriptions. In this post I would like to explain these features in the context of Cadence on YouTube. 

Obviously, if you are looking for Cadence related material on YouTube, the first intuitive action would be to search for Cadence in the search bar. Since Cadence also has different meanings than EDA and Systems company based in Silicon Valley (there is even a movie called Cadence directed by Martin Sheen which you can watch on YouTube), you might get some other results as well, but after some scrolling you should find Cadence Design Systems with the familiar logo. For faster searching, simply search for our full name, Cadence Design Systems. On the right there is a button “Subscribe,” if you click on it, you will be subscribed to our channel. To receive a message in your browser every time Cadence  publishes a new video, click the little bell icon to sign up for notifications. 

When you click on the Cadence Design Systems link or on the logo, you enter the channel. Every video published by Cadence will appear here. In the overview you will see the latest uploaded video and the most popular playlists. A playlist is a collection of videos on one particular topic. If you click on the first video in the playlist, it starts playing and after it finishes, the second video in the playlist starts till the playlist finishes. 

The second tab shows all videos that have been uploaded to the Cadence channel. As I am writing this, there are more than 1000 videos uploaded, they can be sorted by the upload date, or the most popular ones, but still the diversity of topics is too large to get a comprehensive overview.  

This is where the third tab “Playlists” comes into play, pun intended. Here, Cadence has categorized and organized videos with related topics into playlists. At the first sight you will see most popular playlists, but if you click on the “Created Playlists” link, then you will see all 52 playlists defined.

There you will also find the Cadence Academic Network playlist, where we publish information on contests, conferences, endorsements from Lead Institution professors and other material that illustrates our work and provides ideas about how you can engage with the Cadence Academic Network. Access the playlist directly, here: Cadence Academic Network. 

The fifth tab “Channels,” shows which other channels are recommended by Cadence. There are channels like “Cadence Allegro” or “Cadence PCB Design and Analysis”, which also offer specialized content for system level designers.  

I would also like to recommend three other channels, which are run by Cadence Academic Network professors.

	Professor Adi Teman from Bar Ilan University in Israel has created a series of videos on digital VLSI design.
	Professor Francesco Fornetti from University of Bristol has created a channel, Explore RF, where he describes how AWR software can be used to teach, from the very basics of electrical circuits, to complex RF Amplifier designs.
	Professor David Ricketts from North Carolina State University has a series of videos covering Radio System Design.

All professor channels can be helpful resources for academia, professors and students alike!  

YouTube is a fascinating universe of videos like Baby Shark and Gangnam Style, which are influencing our current culture, but at the same time there is a huge pool of knowledge for self-education, so I recommend viewing it not only as a platform for time wasting and entertainment, but as a serious educational platform for microelectronics education.