Of EDA Vendors and Conferences

There's an interesting thread on Cool Verification (http://www.coolverification.com/2009/02/dvcon-misfits-unite.html) about the number of papers at DVCon 2009 authored or co-authored by EDA vendors. There seems to be an assumption on the part of some posters that vendor involvement implies marketing presentations. Not necessarily so! I've certainly seen some conference presentations that were nothing more than recycled product pitches. But I've also seen many excellent case studies in which EDA vendors participated.

Let's be honest here - users don't have a lot of time to write conference papers and trade press articles. EDA vendors, and vendors of other sorts too, may provide the encouragement and assistance to make these publications possible. Sometimes we just provide guidance, sometimes we edit, sometimes we co-author, and sometimes we ghostwrite the whole thing. Don't assume that a user paper without a vendor's name attached didn't involve a vendor, and don't assume that one with a vendor name attached is unworthy of consideration.

In various Applications Engineering and Marketing roles for several IP and EDA vendors, I have published many conference papers and technical articles. More than 50 of these did not have my name on them; they were co-written without credit or entirely ghostwritten. No one has ever accused any of the credited authors of any of those publications of being a vendor beard or shill. I know how to assist my end users in publishing and presenting credible, highly technical material that doesn't involve any marketing hype at all.

The bottom line is that you should judge a technical paper, article, or talk by its content and not by its attribution.

Tom A.

The truth is out there...sometimes it's in a blog