Simplify: Enable Quality, Enable Innovation

Abstract

As the old sales adage goes, “Nothing happens until somebody sells something.” For the semiconductor-based electronics industry, the never-ending challenge is to find and sell the next IC-based new “something” (or “somethings”) that consumers just can’t live without. It’s an immense and extremely expensive undertaking to find/create/deliver a killer app, requiring a single-minded, undistracted business focus and an immense amount of creative design innovation. Fortunately, there is a wealth of business-savvy, creative systems companies able to meet that challenge, as long as they are free to concentrate on what drives their core competency: designing and selling exciting new business systems and consumer devices. What they need from their chip manufacturers is an agreement on specs, models, pricing, and delivery. Simple. Fortunately, there are semiconductor firms up to the challenge, as long as they are free to exercise their core mission: designing and selling faster and slicker chips, often now with software and boards attached. They need to focus on taking their customer’s performance specifications and turning out a system on a chip that does exactly those things, on time and on budget. What they need from their EDA vendors are tightly integrated design tools that allow them to meet their goals of performance, price, and predictability. Simple. Unfortunately, these industries don’t reflect this simplified, rosy picture... yet. The hard reality is, however, that they do have to get there, and soon, or live with dwindling prospects for the future. This presentation will discuss strategies for simplifying the semiconductor value chain, thereby enabling each segment to focus on doing well what it does best, for the sake of the future of the entire electronics industry.