Best Companies To Work For

The 25 Best Tech Companies To Work For uses data from Glassdoor.com to aggregate the anonymous, inside scoop on what's good and what's not at employers.

Companies on the list relevant to EDA/ASIC engineers:

• #1 Google
• #4 Apple
• #7 Qualcomm
• #12 Juniper
• #14 MathWorks
• #15 Analog Devices
• #17 Intel
• #22 Synopsys "employees love their CEO"
• #24 Cisco Systems
• #25 Texas Instruments

Moore's Law for EDA?

Thank you, EDA vendors! From Semiconductor input costs vs output prices -- managing the squeeze:

SURPRISE: EDA cost per transistor is coming down the same learning curve as all the other input costs like materials, chemicals, labor, etc. (above) and it has been doing so throughout semiconductor history.

What is Wally Rhines' prescription for increased EDA value-add (and profits)? EDA vendors

... must incorporate the embedded software development and system analysis costs into their design tools and flows. To the extent this is accomplished, there isn’t a cost problem and the 30%+ per year per transistor cost reduction can be achieved. That’s why EDA companies first became involved in embedded software in the mid 1990’s. That involvement will grow as EDA companies take on more responsibility for the total design challenge and its costs. It’s just part of the evolution of roles in the semiconductor industry. (Walden C. Rhines is chairman & CEO, Mentor Graphics Corporation.)

Although in the short term there are still plenty of us fighting it out for nanometer-scale timing (and now power) closure, the focus on software and systems is plausible for the long term. We must find quantum leaps in productivity to take advantage of Moore's law in semiconductors.

SKMurphy's DAC 2010 Meta-Post

Sean Murphy has done a great service in compiling much of the Design Automation Conference coverage in his DAC 2010 Blog Coverage Roundup. It merits close review, and is an especially welcome resource for people like me who weren't able to attend the show.

You can see other trip reports and interesting links in the delicious.com sidebar of my blog, where I post EDA and Semiconductor links.