Nearly five years ago, I signed off with my last blog post in the Cadence Community. I’m delighted to return to the Cadence family and to resume my blogging activity. My former colleagues have welcomed me back warmly, and I hope that those of you who have read some of my previous posts will also be pleased to see me back. All of my posts are still online and I may reference them from time to time since many of the points I raised are still relevant. The topics for my upcoming posts will likely change a bit. In my previous role at Cadence I was running the product management group for verification software products. These included simulation, testbenches, verification planning, and formal analysis. Now I’m focused on portable stimulus, software-driven verification, and other technologies that span our software- and hardware-based verification platforms. So I still work closely with all my old colleagues but with a bit of a different charter. One thing that hasn’t changed is that Cadence remains in a unique position as the only EDA company whose products span every aspect of chip, board, and system development. Whether you’re an architect, programmer, hardware designer, verification engineer, part of a silicon validation team, or a production test engineer, we can help you. I also believe that Cadence is a company whose business units are not “silos” and where cross-product teams can collaborate efficiently to produce new and innovative solutions. These two aspects of Cadence were important factors in my decision to return. Successful execution of initiatives spanning multiple products and organizations is much easier when most or all of the technologies are available in house and employees are not discouraged from thinking broadly. Trying to accomplish the same goals with disconnected business units or with point tools and a patchwork of partners is a daunting prospect. I think that Cadence offers opportunities that no one else can. These points are especially relevant to my current product focus. I will talk more about portable stimulus in future posts, but in case you’re not familiar with the term let me define it. The Accellera goal is a standard that fosters the creation of a single verification model from which tests can be generated automatically for all verification platforms, from virtual prototypes through simulation, acceleration, in-circuit emulation (ICE), FPGA prototyping, and even the actual fabricated silicon. I’ve been Secretary of the Accellera Portable Stimulus Working Group ( PSWG ) since its inception, and I have worked in this area for several years. I have a good sense for what the industry needs both in a standard and in a commercial solution for this important emerging approach. I believe that Cadence is uniquely qualified to lead the industry in the development of portable stimulus technology. We have also taken a leadership role in the PSWG and have spent a great deal of time and effort to share our expertise in the development of the standard. We at Cadence offer all of the verification platforms and we understand the nuances of using each to its best advantage. The exact test generated for each platform can be tuned for best performance, design coverage, and efficient debug. Because we’re all in the same company, we may have access to special hooks or interfaces not available to third-party tools. Our Perspec portable stimulus solution is already well integrated with our verification and systems product lines. We are continually adding new features to raise the value of our combined products to much more than just a convenient sales bundle So I am happy to be back in the fold and excited about the prospects for Cadence in portable stimulus, software-driven verification, and cross-platform technologies of all kinds. I will help tell our story in many ways, but this blog will be a key avenue for communication. Please keep in mind that the best blogs are two-way channels; I strongly encourage you to use the comments feature to provide feedback. Tell me what you like and don’t like, suggest topics you’d like me to cover in the future, or just say hello. Thank you in advance, and happy reading! Tom A. The truth is out there...sometimes it's in a blog.![]()
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