Logic Design Blogs

With a tagline of "Go beyond your imagination", it was pretty clear that this year's CDNLive! EMEA event would not be a typical user conference. Of course it also kicked off just days after our EDA360 launch, so there was a lot of buzz around that. Cadence's CMO, John Bruggeman, kicked off the conference by sketching out exactly what EDA360 means so we got to hear the vision live from the source. I think a lot of folks were pleasantly surprised by this bold vision, and also surprised that Cadence realizes that this is going to be a collaborative ecosystem effort. I'm guessing this is why the ChipEstimate.com booth was so busy.

John was followed by an interesting talk by Dr. Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, who gave some unexpected examples of what this could mean beyond the traditionally thought-of applications like smart phones. For instance smart tire systems that can sense the proper tire pressure, wear, slippage, and other factors. Or even systems where neurons are graphed onto semiconductors, forming neuronal networks. Soon we can be the system.

For me the most rewarding experience was all the conversations I had with logic designers. I was amazed at the complexity of the automotive chips that are being designed now. They're not running at GHz speeds, but they are incorporating more and more IP and software. And even though they can rely on a big car battery, they also have to be concerned about leakage power, because you don't want to land at the airport and find that your car's electronics has drained your battery while you were away (by the way, when will we finally get a battery meter for cars? You never know your battery is done until a rainy day when you need to be somewhere).

Hopefully those that attended the Logic Design track's roadmap session got a glimpse of how we are extending the definition of logic design in addition to the expected core technology enhancements. We still have a lot of work to do towards the EDA360 vision, but you can see that we are already making progress.

So thanks to the Cadence EMEA team and our logic design AEs in Munich for a great event. I always enjoy talking to our customers in EMEA because they constantly teaching me to go beyond my imagination of what logic design really is and should be.

Jack Erickson