EDA News Monday August 18, 2003 From: EDACafe _____ _____ About This Issue O Canada! Our EDA Neighbors to the North _____ August 11 - 15, 2003 by Peggy Aycinena Read business product alliance news and analysis of weekly happenings _____ Say that you're on deadline and that, although you started this article about Canada two weeks ago, you waited until the very last night to finish it. And say on that exact night, the largest blackout in the history of the Universe struck the North Eastern States and parts of Canada, including most of Ontario. And say that every time you tried to access some official Canadian website with stats and facts about the country, you got about as far as a subway train gets in a (blacked-out) New York minute. So say, instead, you had to resort to a website called An American's Guide to Canada: True Facts. It's there that you would learn that Canada has 9,976.100 square kilometers to house its 31 million citizens, while the U.S. has only 9, 372,600 square kilometers to house its 270 million citizens, that Canada spends more of its gross domestic product on education than the U.S., and that Canada has more donut shops per capita than the United States does. Immediately you would know why most Americans wish they were Canadians -- fun-loving, easy going, reliable, congenial, neighborly Canadians. Of course, you'd also learn that Canadians consume more Kraft Macaroni & Cheese dinners per capita than any other nationality on earth. And since you'd be monitoring on-line updates on the blackout as you worked, you'd also learn that by late Thursday night the Canadians were being blamed for the power disaster by some of their fun-loving, easy going, reliable, congenial neighbors to the south. Now say you were still trying to finish this article the next morning, you'd then learn that those initial accusations against the poor Canadians were probably premature and incorrect. You'd learn that it's probably somebody in Ohio who will end up taking the heat for 50 million people getting knocked off the power grid at just past 4 PM EST. Luckily, however, this article's about EDA and not about that stodgy, old-fashioned, less-than-compelling niche in electrical engineering, which includes power generation and distribution. Thank goodness, because we want to talk about real electrical engineering, things like microelectronics, nanotechnology, and computer-aided design. Which brings us back to Canada. Here are the highlights of five conversations that should help to educate all of us about everything EDA in the land of Maples Leaves, Donuts, and Mounties on Horseback. EDA in Canada My first conversation was with Scott McClellan, President and CEO of Icinergy Software Co. based in Kanata, Ontario. Scott has always been an articulate spokesman, not just for Icinergy, but for the Canadian technology environment, as well. Scott told me by phone, "One of the main reasons there's an EDA presence in Canada is because Nortel/BNR in Ottawa had a huge CAD department in the 1980's with lots of people. Grant Martin at Cadence Berkeley Labs and Robert Hum at Mentor Graphics are among a whole host of guys who came out of the internal CAD organization at Nortel. At one time, Nortel had over 250 people in their CAD organization alone." "Today, there are a number of EDA companies in Canada including ADA in Ottawa, Electronics Workbench in Toronto, and Quantic EMC in Winnipeg, which was founded by Dr. Alvin Wexler from the University of Manitoba. Cadence does development work in Canada -- they've got part of my former company, EECad, which does PCB software and some IC CAD." "Cadabra was started by Dr. Martin Lefebvre at Carleton University in Ottawa. Cadabra was bought by Numerical Technologies, and then NumeriTech was bought by Synopsys. So you could also say that a part of Synopsys was started in Canada, as well. There's a company in Montreal called Design Workshop Technologies, which has been around for a long time. They do IC layout tools and a number of other tools. And there's GeneriCAD in Ottawa, which has various graphical tools that they customize for people." "Clearly, there are multiple companies in Canada across a broad range of niches in EDA and, though there's not so much a sense of community [among the Canadian EDA] companies, there is a knowledge of each other. You know the other companies and their space, but you don't work in it -- we couldn't work with each other even if we tried. [But we do share the fact that] all these Canadian companies have a bit of an advantage over [other non-American] companies trying to sell into the U.S. market because we're 'continental' -- we're on the same continent as the U.S." "[Additionally], there are R&D tax benefits for anyone doing business here in Canada. You get 80% of your R&D dollars back if the company is wholly owned by Canadians. It's true that our salaries here are slightly lower [than in the U.S.], but salaries are paid in Canadian dollars, which actually contributes to the savings [associated with doing business]." "It's also true that the bulk of designers [customers] are still in California today, but the advantage for an EDA company to locate there is disappearing slowly. I think that people have realized that, although California is a great place to live, the cost structure of living there is not so great. EDA developers are spreading out to places like Oregon and Texas. And Canada certainly continues to be a place where it's possible to find excellent developers, as well." "[Meanwhile], the majority of our customers are located just 5 minutes from us here in Ontario. Companies tend to buy their tools where the support is very close. If a customer has a choice between a distributor in their own country, or someone with just a local sales rep, they'll usually chose [a vendor] who can be there for them. And for start-up companies like Icinergy, where products are evolving rapidly, it's great to have customers nearby for feedback." "I think EDA is a mature industry that has to go through further evolution. We're not like a lot of other businesses, trying to sell as if we're riding a wave. Our technology base isn't going to grow as fast as others. Our customers are looking to us for help with their problems, but [they'll only continue to look for help] if we do a lot of work to improve our tools. There's no place like EDA. The complexity is high, the tech pace is fast, and it's a lot of fun. The people here at Icinergy wouldn't be anywhere else other than in EDA, in Canada." My next conversation was with Grant Martin in California, well-known contributor to EDA and a Fellow at the Cadence Berkeley Labs in Berkeley, CA. He's been with Cadence since 1994, after having spent 10 years at Nortel/BNR in Ottawa and 6 years at Burroughs in Scotland. Educated at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Grant had lots to say about EDA and Canada when I spoke to him on the phone. "I really enjoy looking at the historical perspective and the big thing about EDA in Canada, by far, was all of the research going on at Bell Northern Research -- Nortel/BNR. I joined them in 1984. At that time, they had a community of designers in-house with upwards of 2000 people. Nortel was large -- dominant, really -- in EDA in Canada. Multiple companies have emerged out of Nortel employees and research, but many more have some type of association with Nortel." "The Nortel CAD group spent years developing CAD tools on IBM mainframes in the 1980's. Gradually, however, the company switched over to workstation-based CAD and commercial products from companies like Synopsys, Mentor, and Cadence. So there were two major changes [that impacted the situation at Nortel]." "The design technology [in-house] moved from developing tools to integrating mostly externally developed tools and, after a while, the PCB portion of the company spun out and formed a separate company, as well. Meanwhile, there were other spin-out companies emerging. LogicVision was one of them. Vinod Agarwal at McGill had done substantial research collaboration with Nortel. Also, Rajeev Madhavan ended up founding Magma Design Automation. Rajeev actually worked for me when we were at BNR. I also was involved in Martin Lefebvre's research at Nortel that led to his founding Cadabra." "Nortel today is a very different place. The company went through the telecomm/datacomm crash, while there's also been a shift away from hardware-oriented design to software-oriented design so the move to even less internal design has continued." "I was working as a second-level manager at Nortel when the company went through its transition to external tools between the late 1980's and the mid-1990's. At that time, I had a choice -- make a career change into semiconductor design or get back into EDA, which was where my heart was. So I talked to Robert Hum, who's now a Vice President at Mentor, and I asked him what was happening at Cadence. [Based on that conversation], my wife and I made the big decision to leave Ottawa -- the winters are very harsh there -- and come to Cadence in California. But we haven't forgotten Canada at all. It means [something special] to be a Canadian." "In EDA [prior to the 1990's], Canada wasn't on the periphery of things as there were strong, dominant organizations like Nortel developing internal CAD systems. It was an exciting place to work [if you were interested in EDA], although it was one of the few places to work. When the transformation to commercial tools happened, however, the center of gravity [in EDA] definitely shifted to the West Coast of the United States. Eventually, the magnetic pull of the West Coast meant that all Canadian EDA companies had to establish a presence here, even if they continued to do their R&D work in Canada. But that's true for all EDA companies -- even those from Europe. In fact, I think that companies in Asia and Japan prefer to deal with EDA companies that have their headquarters on the West Coast." "However, Canada continues to have excellent universities and researches -- particularly with collective organizations like the CMC (Canadian Microelectronics Corp.), the SoC national research network, and Micronet (a Canadian-wide network of university, industry, and government research organizations working together to support development of next-generation microelectronics) all concentrating on design and the infrastructure for design. CMC and Micronet help overcome the distances and distributed populations in the country -- all the way from Newfoundland to British Columbia -- and unite national research efforts. [Going forward], you will continue to see highly creative individuals coming out of the Canadian technical community." After talking with Grant Martin, I had a chance to chat with Peter Stokes from his office in Kingston, Ontario, where he is Manager of Methodology and Semiconductor IP at the aforementioned CMC. To better understand the CMC, let me boldly plagerize here from their website: The Canadian Microelectronics Corporation is at the centre of a highly successful collaboration that is vital to the evolution of Canada's information economy. CMC is unique in the world, delivering advanced tools and technologies to enable leading-edge research in Canadian universities and high-quality training of future employees in industry. CMC provides university researchers and students with the best available tools for the design, manufacture and test of microchips. The CMC-university-industry-government partnership helps to produce individuals with the finest knowledge and skills in microelectronics, related areas of photonics, optoelectronics and micromachining, and progressively in nano-scale technologies. As the key provider of tools and technology for researchers in microelectronics and related technologies at Canadian universities, CMC ultimately benefits Canadian companies across many sectors. Peter Stokes told me, "The CMC in Canada is unique in the world. We are providing an environment that is disproportionately rich for innovation in EDA, semiconductors, and microelectronics. Countries as far away as Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Australia are coming to visit and to learn about our formula [for success]. Of course, we would advise the American government to sponsor such an effort within the U.S., but quite honestly, not if it were to blunt our competitive edge here in Canada. Although, we are now partnering with MOSIS in the U.S." "Here at the CMC, we have a chance to stand on a higher platform, to look out over the entire Canadian landscape and share business and technical IP under our umbrella with 44 universities, with the help of over 30 sponsoring companies and individuals. [Through that process], we're fueling the global EDA industry through our close connections with innovators in universities and industry." "Looking back over the past 20 years, since our founding in 1984, we first offered chip fabs to Canadian universities. That was great, but then they wanted test facilities. So we had to supply them with HP/Agilent and Teradyne types of test equipment. Then they asked us to help them with EDA tools. So we partnered with the major EDA vendors and started offering deeply discounted CAD tools for research at universities." "Today, if you're a Cadence or an ARM, CMC looks like a normal commercial customer. But behind that commercial fagade, CMC is offering first line support to the universities who access their tools through us. Of course, if a technical problem escalates to a point of marked difficulty, we talk directly to the vendor to get help for the researchers. Now the evolution of CMC is such that we're involved with cell libraries, IP developments, and the new era in SoC research. All of this has certainly kept us on our toes." "Interestingly, the best thing about a CMC-like program, is that small Canadian schools have the same access to state-of-the art tools that large school have. [Subsequently], we have a strong influence on the curriculum of most schools in the country, and on the lab materials being used to teach graduate and undergraduate classes." "Over the years, we've worked with many of the movers and shakers in EDA. Resve Saleh at the University of British Columbia was one of the founders of Simplex and we have worked closely with him for many years. Vinod Agarwal from McGill founded LogicVision and has been a good friend of ours -- as has Rajeev Madhavan at Magma." "When you look at EDA worldwide, you'll see a common thread. There are smart entrepreneurs everywhere who have [developed their skills] based on resources coming out of the CMC. The term may be overused, but you can see CMC as fostering co-opetition among the Canadian technology companies. [Meanwhile], we believe universities worldwide are going to need to cooperated to [push the envelope in technology]. It's fun to be part of an organization like CMC which is in a position to lead that effort." (Editor's Note: Thanks to Sonya Shorey, Manager of Communications at the CMC, for facilitating my conversation with Peter Stokes.) My next phone call was a local one, as I spoke to Vinod Agarwal from his offices at LogicVision, Inc. in San Jose, where he is Founder, President, and CEO of the company. Prior to founding LogicVision, Agarwal was an endowed chair professor at McGill University in Montreal and established a world-class VLSI Design and Test research center and developed his expertise in embedded test structures. Although LogicVision is based in Silicon Valley, Agarwal has neither forgotten nor dismisses the influence his Canadian roots have had on his success in business. He told me, "[We started in Canada] and we maintain strong ties there. Although we're headquartered in Silicon Valley, it makes a lot of sense for us to maintain a branch in Canada. LogicVision has twenty employees in Montreal and Ottawa -- development people who are all top talents. [In fact], practically speaking, it costs less to do business in Canada. Both the federal and state [provincial] governments in Canada offer [tax incentive] benefits to companies doing R&D, and the cost of living is lower there. Of course, it costs less to do business anywhere outside of Silicon Valley, because the cost of living is so high here. However, companies who decide to have their headquarters in Canada -- and the EDA industry is extremely limited in Canada -- always have to have a sales and marketing presence here in Silicon Valley." Despite the small EDA presence in Canada, Vinod says there are big things happening in the larger microelectronics landscape: "There are over 40 excellent universities across Canada. They may not be 'name' universities here in the U.S. -- except perhaps McGill and the University of Ontario -- but they are all very good schools. The technical emphasis varies from school to school, but all of them cover the basic microelectronic courses and many have VLSI design labs. The focus may vary from design, to process technology, to test, and frequently there's a strong bias toward telecomm because of Nortel." Agarwal is an avid supporter of both CMC and Micronet and says it's these types of collaborative organizations which guarantee that important progress in microelectronics will continue to emerge out of Canada -- "CMC and Micronet add to the appeal of working on high-tech in Canada." To round out my five conversations, it seemed appropriate to end with Analog Design Automation -- an Ottawa-based company with corporate headquarters now located in Silicon Valley. I spoke with Matthew Raggett, President and CEO, and Amit Gupta, Vice President for Business Development at the company. Matthew was speaking to me from ADA's corporate headquarters in Silicon Valley, while Amit was speaking from ADA's Ottawa offices. Matthew Raggett told me, "We've seen that the Canadian government and several federal organizations are very supportive of technology growth. And we've found a hotbed of customers in Canada, particularly in Ottawa. Another things that makes Canada appealing is that Canadian investors have been very aggressive in their funding strategies of late -- unlike in the U.S., where a year or so ago investment levels dropped by 50 or 60 percent. The Canadian rate has only dropped by 20 percent over the last year, and I think that's because they've always been more long-term in their investment horizons. Canadian investors tended not to jump into the Internet bubble, so they had less downward [trajectory with the tech crash]. In that way, they've been typically Canadian and rational." Amit Gupta said, "We started in Ottawa where, historically, Nortel was a big company here in early years. We derived a lot of analog talent from the company and, today, there's a nice technology cluster here in Ottawa of analog and mixed-signal companies. From an EDA perspective, companies like Cadabra got their start in Ottawa, [which is representative] of the critical mass here for EDA. Our technology at ADA came out of research at the University of Saskatchewan, where the founders developed the algorithms at the core of our tools. {Meanwhile], Resve Saleh at the University of British Columbia is a member of our Technical Advisory Board." Matthew then said that, although the technical heart of ADA remains in Ottawa, "it's important for us to have our field operations and headquarters based in Silicon Valley. I think that from our perspective, where we're pursuing the commercialization phase of our products, we need to be where the customers are, understand their business models, and take advantage of the distribution channels that are centered here in the Valley." "I think that the business model specific to EDA has not always existed in Canada, although we're already seeing a flux happening on the software development side. Canada has a tremendous software background, perhaps not well documented. There are many capable engineers with Canadian university backgrounds, and there's a very strong environment for software development in Canada -- the appropriate mentality for the technology." By his own admission, Matthew Raggett is British by birth and training. Unlike the others I spoke to for this article, he has neither Canadian roots nor education. Therefore, it's appropriate to let him have the last objective word on what an outsider senses to be that "special something" that defines a Canadian. "When I first arrived in Canada, I thought that the Canadian peoples were nothing more than disgruntled Americans. I was very wrong. In fact, Canadians have a unique culture all their own. They have a long-reaching thought process and lots of different cultures across a huge geography, but somehow they feel very linked to one another. Whenever you meet a Canadian on either distinct coast, you see that there's something that clearly binds them all together. More than anything, however, you see that Canadians are a very collaborative people." That's oh so lucky for the Canadians and for EDA, as well. O Canada! Industry news -- Tools and IP Accelerated Technology, the Embedded Systems Division of Mentor Graphics Corp., announced that the Nucleus RTOS has been integrated into SANKHYA Varadhi, version 1.1 XE. The company says the combined technology will give Nucleus developers the ability to make use of Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) in their embedded applications and therefore build complex distributed systems simply and quickly. CORBA is an open, vendor-independent architecture and infrastructure that computer applications use in order to work together over networks. It provides an open management interface for configuring and managing embedded devices from other systems. Accelerated Technology says that by using CORBA, Nucleus developers can write embedded applications that work independently across various platforms and diverse networks. Atmel Corp. announced it will support Agilent Technologies' software design platform, RF Design Environment -- Agilent's large-scale RF/mixed-signal IC design 'solution' for high frequency wireless, Wireline, and aerospace/defense applications. Axis Systems, Inc. and ARM Ltd. announced the two companies have signed an agreement to develop a fully integrated, system-level verification flow for ARM cores and the ARM PrimeXsys Platform. The companies say the flow will be optimized for acceleration and emulation through Axis, who will deliver all levels of verification in a single product that supports ARM hardware and software models. The companies also say the flow will be used by design teams to fully validate SoC designs. The agreement builds on the existing relationship between the two companies, and says Axis will further integrate the ARM technologies and cores into its XoC platform for the embedded market. Additionally, Axis will be joining the ARM PrimeXsys Community Program. Cadence Design Systems, Inc. announced that the China Suzhou CAS IC Design Center (SZ-CAS ICDC) has used Cadence EDA platforms in its 'essential' IC design platform. SZ-CAS ICDC is a non-commercial organization set up by Suzhou Municipal Government and China Academy of Sciences, which aims to incubate IC design start-ups in Suzhou -- a 3,000-year-old Chinese city. Cadence says this announcement is another demonstration of the long-term commitment by Cadence to boost China's IC design industry with the Chinese government. Dr. Yang, General Manager of SZ-CAS ICDC, says, "Today's fast growing IC design market in China is full of opportunities, yet [still] very challenging for start-up companies to live and grow. Cadence not only demonstrated its comprehensive technology capabilities and design expertise, but also helped tailor the design platforms to meet our specific requirements, such as advanced CPU, IP block and SoC design, and provided advanced training sessions to recruit local talent. It is critical to our future growth and success. SZ-CAS ICDC is very satisfied with the cooperation with Cadence and looks forward to strengthening our win-win partnership in the future to boost the IC industry in Suzhou." (See Special Editor's Note below) Also from Cadence -- The company announced the "delivery and early market acceptance of the new release of Fire & Ice QXC, the most accurate cell-based sign-off extractor for processes at 130 nanometers and below. Fire & Ice 3.2 was shown to be the most accurate in an independent benchmark run on all commercially available cell-based extractors. It incorporates new-generation 3-D models that correctly account for all copper and optical effects, enabling designers to reduce timing margins and improve performance and yield of their designs so they can accelerate the time from chip design to volume production." Apparently Fujitsu agrees. Kazuyuki Kawauchi, General Manager, Technology Development, LSI group, Fujitsu Ltd, said, "We have tested QXC for accuracy, speed and capacity, and it exceeded our requirements for all three criteria. We are looking forward to installing this version of QXC into our production environment as soon as possible." IDS Software Systems, Inc. (IDS) announced the release of dataPOWER 6.0 'enterprise-wide' semiconductor yield management system (YMS). The company says this release has new subsystems and enhancements to improve the power and efficiency of semiconductor data analysis. Currently, IDS is being acquired by PDF Solutions, Inc. Novas Software, Inc. announced 'enhanced' tool interoperability with the Synopsys VCS MX mixed-HDL simulator to support mixed-language verification and debug for SoC designs. The companies say integration efforts have been completed. Per the Press Release: "Mixed-language designs have become more commonplace today and present new verification challenges both in terms of size and complexity, as well as in understanding unfamiliar design elements and tracking down design errors. The Novas-Synopsys integration allows designers to verify and debug chips that incorporate design elements sourced in either or both Verilog and VHDL formats." Synopsys, Inc. announced that FR-HiTEMP Ltd. (aircraft fuel systems) has developed its next-generation sensorless, brushless DC motor-driven fuel pumps using Synopsys' Saber simulator. The companies says that Saber multi-technology simulation was used for verification of the electrical, electronic, and electromechanical elements of the pump designs needed to meet new aircraft power system specifications. Fuel pump engineers used Saber to design and simulate different pump configurations in conjunction with the power system, before committing to physical prototypes. Teseda Corp. announced a new release of its V500 DFT-Focused Engineering Test System, which the company says has "significant new capabilities that enable a wider range of applications, including support for delay (AC) scan and IDDQ test methodologies, enhanced BIST control, and seamless integration with DFT tools from Cadence, SynTest, and several other DFT tool vendors." Teseda says the V500 is currently being used by various semiconductor manufacturing companies including Sharp Microelectronics and Sanyo. Coming soon to a theater near you Verisity Ltd. announced a series of free verification methodology seminars running from September through November across various venues in North America, Europe, and Asia. The company says the seminars will introduce verification process automation (VPA) and offer a step-by-step approach to "first-pass silicon success with today's extremely complex chips, systems, hardware and software systems, and SoCs." Attendees are warned that the seminars will be highly technical and will cover concepts such as verification metrics that scale from the module to the chip, and on to the system. Read between the lines here -- If you're highly technical by nature, you'll be fascinated. If you're not, plan to bring a thermos of strong coffee. ( www.verisity.com ) World Nano-Economic Congress -- WNEC is taking place September 8th to 10th in Washington, D.C. It's described as a "nanotechnology business conference" focusing on commercial markets and applications across six industry groups: Aerospace and Defense, Medical and Pharmaceutical, Energy Production and Distribution, IT and Telecommunications, Automotive and Transportation, and Chemicals and Advanced Materials. Not surprisingly, there's going to be a host of excellent speakers, so if you can Think Big on a Nano Scale or Think Nano on a Big Scale, you should be planning to attend. ( www.nano-economics.com ) Newsmakers E*ECAD, Inc. announced the appointment of Bruce von Herrmann as Vice President of Marketing. He will report to President Richard Siemiatkowski and will oversee all strategic and corporate marketing functions. Bruce has 25 years. experience in IT, Marketing, and Professional Services. Prior to joining E*ECAD, he was 3Com's Vice President of Global e-Business and North America Field Operations. Previously, von Herrmann worked for HP as the Distributed Computing Manager for the Santa Clara Site, the Marketing Program Manager for Unix/NT Interoperability, and the Product Marketing Manager for all of HP's Global Professional Services. Prior to Hewlett-Packard, Bruce was CIO for WestAmerica Bank and Director of Service and Support Marketing at SGI. Von Herrmann has a B.S. in Accounting and an M.A. in Marketing, both from San Francisco State University. Tenison EDA has named NorthStar Associates as its Northwest representative, which the company says expands its North American sales channels. NorthStar specializes in enabling new EDA companies to sell and support their products into electronic design companies located in the Northwest United States. Virage Logic Corp. announced the appointment of Greer Person to the newly created position of Vice President of Business Development. He will be responsible for mergers and acquisitions, strategic investments, alliances and strategy development. Prior to Virage, Person spent 5 years as Senior Director and Head of Business Development at LSI Logic. He also spent 4 years in LSI Logic's marketing group as a product line manager and marketing manager responsible for mixed-signal, ASIC, and packaging technologies. Prior to LSI Logic, Person had several engineering and operations management positions at Intergraph Corporation. Person has a BSEE from the University of Mississippi and an MBA from Santa Clara University. Verisity, Ltd. and Emulation and Verification Engineering (EVE) announced that EVE has joined the Verisity Interoperability Partners (VIP) program. Through the VIP program, EVE says it has integrated its ZeBu product with Verisity's Specman Elite. In the category of: Bored Room Bingo Are you Bored in the Board Room? Then you need a Board in the Bored Room -- a Bingo Board. This idea is not new, but here's what you need to do. Get 10 blank pieces of paper Draw a 5-column x 5-row grid on each sheet of paper Randomly choose 25 words from the following list (see below) Randomly insert them into the 25 cells Each of the 10 sheets should be different Hand out a sheet to each Board Member at your next Bored Meeting Folks should cross out any word on the Game Board uttered during the meeting The first person to get a row, column, or diagonal crossed out yells, "BORED!" Give a prize to the winner, preferably a copy of Who Moved My Cheese Sell tickets to the next Board Meeting Agenda - Challenge - Solution - Economy - Patent - Intellectual - Property - Team - Salary - Internet - Hope - Goals - Target - Bottom - Line - Value - Add - Success - Market - Standard - Industry - Lay - Off - Shore - Sustainable - Competitive -Advantage - Time - To - Market - Overhead - Inventory - NRE - NDA - IT - SEC - IPO - Leverage - Growth - Resource - Smart - Risk - Opportunity - Venture - Capital - Sarbanes - Oxley - Exit - Strategy - Golden - Handshake - Win - Win - Lose - Yawn Special Editor's Note If you're as old as I am, it's hard to believe that there could ever be a Press Release, which quotes a PRC official touting the challenges and/or benefits of start-up companies. I've just got to go back and re-read my Poli Sci textbooks on Karl Marx and Mao Tse Dung. I must have missed something there. Of course, who would ever have thought that someday we'd be talking about the 1-billion transistor chip. Or that the President of the United States would be suddenly inspired on a random Thursday afternoon in August to suspect the nation's electrical grid needs to be modernized. Might we presume perhaps that he was an Electrical Engineer in his former life? After all, the guy he ran against in 2000 invented the Internet. But wait, there's more : 135 candidates running for Governor of California, all of them Brain Surgeons. Of course, they can't be Heart Surgeons. That job's been reserved for the Senate Majority Leader. The Senate Majority Leader's a Heart Surgeon, the future Governor of California's a Brain Surgeon, and the President's an EE -- so really then, why shouldn't a PRC official be a Venture Capitalist? (Although, next you'll be telling me that EDA guys are Rocket Scientists.) --Peggy Aycinena is a Contributing Editor and can be reached at peggy@ibsystems.com . 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