Giving Back to EDA

 Dane Collins, CEO of AWR. Read profile >>

I’ve recently signed on to the EDA Consortium’s (EDAC.org) board of directors. Why? Two reasons: one, I’d like to give something back to an industry that has given me many years of satisfying and challenging engineering, and two, I think if we can all pull together and address our common problems as a unified group, we can accomplish a lot more than as single entities.

I’ve been part of the EDA fabric for 22 years, during which time I’ve amassed a broad perspective spanning both job function and corporate cultures.  My years doing high-frequency IC design work and as an EDA tool developer and most recently my role as a corporate executive will hopefully be an asset to the EDA Consortium as the wireless revolution is pushing more and more “microwave/RF” concepts into the electronics/EDA landscape.  Likewise, I’ve been fortunate to work in a variety of firms ranging from startups like AWR, EEsof, and High Level Design Systems, to industry giants like Cadence and General Dynamics.  The EDA Consortium is made up of the same mix of small, medium, and large organizations and I can empathize with them all.

Recently I read an article on EDA Cafe by contributing editor Gabe Moretti, “A Look at EDA in 2010.”  In it, Gabe draws attention to the plight of the EDA industry.  No growth in the past four years.  Clearly,  the EDA industry has been going through some turbulent times, even before our current economic recession.  Fortunately for me, AWR has been bucking the EDA slow to no growth trend and I plan to bring this positive outlook, fresh ideas, and a more “high-frequency” perspective to the EDAC board.

Two topics that I’d like to see get more attention in the coming year by the EDA Consortium include software piracy and cloud computing.  In Gabe Moretti ‘s article, he points out that the Chinese market is the major hope for electronics companies, not just for Chinese demand for electronics products, but also for products that incorporate  a large amount of electronic content, such as automobiles. While I agree that Chinese consumerism should positively impact our EDA growth, I am likewise concerned that the Chinese consumption of EDA software is high on the piracy watch list.  So in this respect, we must have a solid plan for curbing software piracy globally as it is a significant threat to the growth of our industry.

For the past several years I’ve worked with EDAC on this piracy problem that plagues our industry.  Through EDAC and through direct work with commercial companies in the piracy space several commercial anti-piracy solutions have been brought to market.  This is a good start but there is still work to be done sharing best practices so all EDAC members can benefit.  EDAC’s Export Group has had great success with its lobbying efforts related to export controls and I would like to see this type of effort applied to piracy also.

The second topic is cloud computing.  With the push to make more things wireless and our unquenched need to make all electronics faster, smaller and more efficient, harnessing the power of computing machines can be a key driver of EDA growth.  Having common practices in this new area of computing should spur on customer adoption and prevent duplication of effort by member companies which leads to better business models and revenue generation in our marketspace.

As a member of the EDAC board of directors I intend to make it a priority to bring together the members of our industry in a spirit of cooperation so as to work towards finding solutions and strategies to the common problems facing us.