Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Find Your Parachute's Color on a Library Vacation

I've recommended Nick Corcodilos' Ask the Headhunter web site before for its unorthodox, yet sensible, advice to finding the best job for you. I'd recommend that you sign up for his newsletter on the web site if you like what you see. This week, he describes taking a Library Vacation(tm) for someone contemplating a career (not just job) change. It's an exciting idea!

I've seen a few friends leaving the high-tech industry, and their transition plans sometimes could use more rigor. It seems like everyone wants to get into a "green" or "alternative energy" job! I'm sure that will be big eventually, but it's better to expand your search space, and carefully consider what you would be passionate doing.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Reading Larry's Tea Leaves

Ellison Insists Sun's Sparc Still Has a Future covers statements by Oracle's Larry Ellison stating the acquiring company's belief in proprietary hardware. However, in "reading between the lines", the author suggests that Oracle might seek a big partner to drive the hardware business over the long haul.

Friday, May 08, 2009

This Week in EDA M&A

Rumors are abounding and some EDA share prices are on fire! While we anxiously await "other shoes to drop", Chris Edwards provides strategic commentary on The week of the sensible deals.

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Coordinated EDA

Does the EDA industry have a roadmap? is a worthy read in its entirety, but I particularly liked
The crises are piling up — software and concurrency, analog/RF, die-package-board and die stacking — and with a fixed number of EDA R&D engineers, we need to stop working on some issues. In the big picture, who wins a power format or current-source model or process variation model war is less critical to semiconductor industry health than consensus, interoperability, and moving on to fundamental design technology challenges.

This is very consistent with the efforts of companies like TSMC to get the EDA industry working cooperatively to solve more problems and add more value, by reducing overlapping development.