Why EDA Verification is Like Pro Sports

First, I would like to introduce myself.  My name is Jim Kjellsen.  I've recently joined the Product Management group for the verification products at Cadence.  My career started as a design and verification engineer, but quickly moved over the fence to the tool provider side in EDA with Daisy Systems.  From there I moved into more of a niche EDA company, Logic Modeling, which was later acquired by Synopsys.  I had been working with the verification products at Synopsys for several years in multiple roles.

Some of the people I've known from my past at Synopsys have said that I've moved over to the "Dark Side."  However, I don't agree with their views.  EDA isn't a battle to the death of drastically opposing forces, such as Darth Vader against the Jedi Knights.  I prefer to think of it as more of a competition.  A competition that is using the tools and methodologies we develop in a quest for our customer's business. 

I like to think of this competition much more like pro sports than Star Wars.  Let's take football for example.  Multiple teams are working during the entire year toward the goal of coming out on top.  They're all working toward winning the Super Bowl.  In both football and EDA we're putting together strategies to make us better, more ready to compete for the season.  However, we'll have specific tactics and strategies that we'll use for each game, or engagement. 

In both cases, the teams are made up of multiple groups.  In football it's the offense, defense and special teams.  In EDA it's R&D, marketing, sales and support.  Within each group there are specialists with different skills. 

Each team will have a similar set of basic tools to use in the competition.  In football they'll use the running game, passing game, defensive schemes and blitzing to get the most advantage they can.  In EDA verification we have tools such as constrained random stimulus, assertion-based verification, coverage methodology and debug techniques that we'll use in the competition.  Each football team will have their own playbook with their unique terminology such as Open Right 41 Outside, which would be a specific play.  In EDA we have our own terminology, mostly consisting of three letter acronyms such as MDV, which is Metric-Driven Verification. 

In the end, one football team will win the game.  One EDA vendor will win the benchmark, evaluation or deal.  Hopefully in neither of these cases will it go into overtime.

Football players are a fairly small community.  They may move from one team to another, but they make friendships along the way with their teammates.  One day they may meet up again with their friends on another team.  The same is true in EDA.  As I'm starting this new stage in my career at Cadence, I'm running into several people that I've known and worked with previously.  I know this isn't the correct meaning of EDA360, but the term could apply here too, I guess.  I'm also leaving behind some great friends that I'll now be competing against, similar to what happens in football.  They can still be friends, but when the whistle blows they become competitors.

I tend to think of myself as a newly acquired wide receiver to the Cadence team.  I'm busy learning the Cadence playbook.  So now it's time to huddle up and call a play.  Game on!

Jim Kjellsen