After around 1 year in the industry, I have started to look at concepts like knowledge, skill , ability etc differently. At some point in my engineering, I was deeply convinced that to be good at engineering, we need hardcore knowledge of the domain we are working in. Even though that belief is still valid in my mind, I have an entirely new view of how to get that knowledge.
One of the reasons that I did not take software engineering was(a very stupid reason I know), was that were too many languages to learn too many platforms to master that what you could do in a life time. This was very depressing for me. True to my human/Indian (?) core I was always searching for the "absolute". I thought I would find solace in the company of the absolute of the hardware industry. Little did I know, here you dependent on the tool and its company as anywhere.
At that times even though there were no absolutes for me in the computer field, I has absolutes for me in other facets of life, like, I had a absolute picture of GOD as the all powerful and also of Hinduism as the true religion. During the past years those things have taken radical hits and are now afloat in totally different avatars. In a way I have understood the futility of the search for absolute knowledge……from what I know now…the closest thing to absolute knowledge is a very relative and constantly changing thing. Its the ability to search for and filter out relevant knowledge.
Its important to more the "filter" key word especially in today’s world, as any Tom, Dick & Harry can post anything on the internet and the common source of information on the net, the Wikipedia, which even though I respect a lot, can be easily manipulated. In this context this link on how to leant to be skeptical about information on the net is very useful
Evaluating Web Pages
So you could say what is important is not knowledge as such, but the ability to find relevant information and the ability to filter it out to knowledge.
The simplest example I can think of with respect to the IT industry is this. The work I do requires me to use multiple scripting languages. I don’t remember the syntax and semantics of most these languages. But what I know is, at an abstract level, the capabilities of each. What this helps me to do is, when I get a problem, at a abstract level I know enough to select the right language for the problem. In case I am in doubt, I split the task into micro tasks, and try to match these tasks with the capabilities of the language starting from the simplest and least capable language. And move on till I get a 100% match. Then I start scourging the net to find sample code that does these micro tasks or get it from previous code I did. Then my work is reduced to just piecing the codes together, which is hard but nonetheless much simpler than if I had to write the code from scratch. This might give me a handicap, say , if I had to attend a test on any particular language but as far as my work is concerned, its goes at a good speed and I also feel my turnaround time at new languages are also reduced.
So to put it in simple words
“Knowledge is not knowing everything, but in knowing how to find the relevant information at the relevant time”
As I pointed out here of how Features are acquired…..
The big 4 in EDA are trying to be the first to the DFM market by buying out the smaller specialist companies in the DFM field.
Now it is Mentors Graphics turn
Mentor buys 45nm chip design tool firm
Mentor Graphics has acquired Sierra Design Automation a supplier of place and route semiconductor fabrication tools for 65nm and 45nm process nodes.
The reason behind the acquisition is the need to address the range of process technologies and new design for manufacture (DFM) methodologies which are expected to influence next generation chip designs.
Earlier it was Cadence
Its fun watching a industry evolve and be in it rather than read about something that happened before you were born 
http://www.eetimes.com/news/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199901924
Really good statement from a person I am starting to admire, Rajeev Madhavan, CEO of magma….
What he says about the IP’s getting integrated with the EDA tools seems to be correct; I mean the way I see its virtually important for single-IP based startup’s to come up. To compete with the abundance of so called "infrastructure" IP pool that the big player’s have. See, what’s the point of a single IP company with expertise in DSP spending time/money developing buying infrastructure IP like IIC and SPI and trying to integrate it into their environment? I would always buy it from the tool vendor provided he gives me a plug-in solution to my environment and also to me at a competitive rate. I know with the technology purists there is some resentment to club IP vendors with EDA industry,but from what I have gathered, we are moving into a area where IP would make a substantial section of the EDA tool’s profit and it doesnt ake sense for me not to leverage on a earning oppertunity as long as it does not affect your work in your core competencies and may even fund more research in the Core business of EDA and talking of the crowd, wouldnt at least some of the people who buy the tools be also in a position to dictate the IP buying for their respective companies? Since I have not attended DAC I cant comment, but I feel probably yes….
Coming back to the heading of the post, in the shark eat fish world of EDA industry….this statement….so well sums it up
Me and my best buddy Zubin, who’s a fanatic RedShite supporter, have this habit of trying to find analogies with the football world ,actually the English premiership, and the everything else in life, and while trying to explain the EDA industry to him ( him being totally clueless as he’s from the ERP field), he came up with a interesting analogy
The EDA companies investing in their own R&D is like the clubs investing in their academy, there is a remote chance of getting a Rooney or a Gerrad ( which would be a break through idea like Custom wire load models ? ) but chances are less….mostly you end with a squad player like Tony Hibbert ( which in EDA terms would be some flow development/refinement, which would seamlessly integrate the different tools or flow reference model etc) who is none the less very important for the success of the team (the tool) . And some club like Wolves would come up with Joelen Lescott (in EDA terms some geek graduate from college would come with the next big Idea of, say, DFM (design for manufacturability)), but the club wont achieve anything because he alone cant will them matches ( the DFM idea wont survive on its own) and would be brought by the big club ( would be brought by Cadance for example…integrated to their flow to make a world class product) and the club would win the Champions league ( successful chip tapeout perhaps 
) ….
To add my own parts to it
Categories create companies (different clubs have different type of playing like arsenal and Manu for one touch football and Chelsea playing the direct approach and Everton with the work-rate based play) Features get acquired ( features are key players with key skills that are either acquired or developed in-house) but the company has to think properly to look at what to acquire, not only just how good the idea is but also how well it suits their category ( not look at just how good the player is but also that his skills are what the team needs or u will end up being Arjen Robben at Chelsea, a brilliant player WASTED)
anyway I have kept all the beautiful people in my dreams waiting today for too long……
Good night and Au revor Kochi
I dont want to sound brash but I feel at least 70% of the base knowledge by a EDA engineer is in the following lines.The rest of the knowledge would come from this base and depend on the domain I feel
Setup time (Ts)
is the time interval immediately preceding the positive transition of the clock input, during which the system must maintain the data at the input to ensure its recognition.
Hold time (Th)
is the time interval immediately following the positive transition of the clock input, during which the system must maintain the data at the input to ensure its continued recognition.
Combinational-logic delay (Tcomb)
is defined as the time required for signals to traverse the combinational logic.
Propagation delay (Tp)
is the time taken for changes in the clock input to affect the outputs.
- Moore’s Law : The number of transistors on a chip doubles annually
- Rock’s Law : The cost of semiconductor tools doubles every four years
- Machrone’s Law: The PC you want to buy will always be $5000
- Metcalfe’s Law : A network’s value grows proportionately to the number of its users squared
- Wirth’s Law : Software is slowing faster than hardware is accelerating
Except for Machrone’s law I feel everything stikes a chord within me….but I guess if you always go for the latest most bestest and garandanglus (if thats a word) that would also hold true….not for cheapos like me who go for second hand computer models
From “5 Commandments”, IEEE Spectrum December 2003, pp. 31-35
