The Xuropean The Xuropa Online Community Blog

There are nearly 800 companies entered into the Xuropa Company Wiki now!

EDA, IP, Semiconductor, Software and Systems companies are represented.  The entire supply chain!

The wiki entry for each company includes a logo, description, contact information, and many more pieces of useful information.  But there are some entries that need “help”. Sign in and you can edit the information for your company.

1. From iXuropa, click on the green “TradeShow” icon
2. Click on the “Company Wiki” tab
3. Find your company using the alpha directory
4. Click on the “Edit” link and fill in the information
5. Click “Submit Company” and you’re done

If your company is not in the directory, add it yourself by clicking the “Add your company” link at the top of the Company Wiki directory.

Xuropa members are browsing the directory all the time, so ensure your company information is accurate and current.  It’s free and a great way to promote your company to a focused electronic design community.

Posted under Features, Xuropa, marketing

An article in Chip Design Magazine announced the GSA’s formation of a working group “to focus on identifying EDA solutions for emerging companies with the goal of promoting and encouraging the availability of EDA programs and tools for emerging companies”.

As we’ve been saying at Xuropa for a long time now, the next big challenge for the semiconductor industry in general and EDA specifically is not the move to the next process node, but how the industry does business.  (Fundamentally, this is why we built the platform.)

The supply chain is stretched thin and the cost of doing business in a globally distributed industry has become prohibitive for start-up and emerging companies.  This systemic problem is exacerbated by the downturn in the economy and the significant decrease of the availability of funding.

The GSA working group is in fact-finding mode holding educational meetings with Synopsys, Mentor, Cadence and Magma to understand their start-up programs and to give them feedback.

As we see it, the main business challenges faced by emerging and established EDA companies are similar when faced with the opportunity of addressing start-up semiconductor companies.

Emerging EDA companies struggle to create a sales channel to penetrate and support the industry globally.  And so they focus their limited resources on the large semiconductor vendors.  They’ve already made the calculation and learned from experience that although a start-up semiconductor company appears to move quicker, take less support and therefore be attractive as a target customer, it’s not actually the case.  For many reasons, the cost model and the “time-to-money” ends up about the same between start-up and established semiconductor companies.

For an established EDA company, it’s a similar matter of costs.  Making tools available at reduced rates is a good way to “bet” on and invest in start-up semiconductor vendors.  It’s a great way to build a relationship and become established in what could be the next “Broadcom”…or acquire-ee of Broadcom.  However the challenge is support and its associated cost.  No longer are these start-ups all hunkered down in a “garage” in Santa Clara.  They’ll have some development in Silicon Valley, but mostly just sales and marketing.  The majority of development is increasingly done in India, Eastern Europe or elsewhere.  When large EDA companies are feeling the pinch themselves, I can see why support of these smaller guys (in narrower and narrow niches) is a difficult cost to justify.

There needs to be a different model.

EDA tools need to be available and supported remotely to reduce the cost of sales and support.  Fortunately we have different solutions and concepts that can assist.

“Cloud Computing” has started to be defined generically, and it’s going to take some time to evolve into a recognized model for the semiconductor industry.  However, a Xuropa Online Lab provides the ideal sales and support structure for established and emerging EDA companies.  An Online Lab enables companies to address a global market remotely providing training, workshops, demonstrations and evaluation of EDA tools.

“Software-as-a-Service” (SaaS) and “Service Oriented Architectures” (SOA) are related to Cloud Computing (but not necessarily linked).  A SaaS model could be adopted by a start-up EDA company as it does not have such an entrenched business to protect as an established EDA company.  A SaaS model does not dictate an immediate re-development of the tool to transform it into SOA either.  However, an SOA-based EDA tool suite would be an attractive goal for delivering the value of an EDA tool chain at a much lower cost.

This is the direction that we at Xuropa see electronic design going and we’re building the platform and technology to support it.

If anybody would like to discuss this further and in person, please contact me via the Xuropa Community.  Just register and send me an email from my Professional Profile.

What do you see as viable solutions to stimulate the semicondcutor industry?

Posted under Xuropa, business, industry

One of the biggest problems for electronic design tool vendors is how to quickly and easily get tools in front of engineers.

For all of the new products out there, engineers want to:

• Get a quick demonstration
• Review some technical material
• Dive in and try out the tool (not on their own workstation!)
• Get some technical training
• Get quick answers to technical questions from engineers or other users

All on their own time, without installing anything or leaving their desk.

Well, now it is possible.  All from the same online location.  A Xuropa Online Lab provides a controlled and secure online environment within which visitors have access to your products with only a browser.  No downloads, no installations and no configuration.

Watch the video to learn more and contact us at (exhibit)[at](xuropa)[dot](com), (with no brackets).

Posted under Features, Xuropa, marketing

We just published a “how to” video describing the use and benefits of the Specialization and Skills features of the Professional Profile section of the Xuropa Community Platform.

It was a new tool to me and the process was very efficient with no real gottcha’s.  So I thought I’d share the process.

1. The tool: Camtasia.
- Extremely intuitive to use.  I only had to refer to the help menu twice to research particular functions, but everything else was straight forward.
- There are some more things that I could learn how to do, but I was off to the races almost immediately.
- Use a headset and microphone.

2. Duration: 3 minutes
- I got this pointer from Tom Kozas of Tuscany.  They do some pretty slick video demonstrations and it’s always better to learn from others than discover mistakes “new-to-you”.

3. Process: Fast Iterations
- Know up front the particular feature you want to emphasize.  Remember that you’ve only got 3 minutes, so you need to focus.
- Without writing a script, capture a “sketch” video with your voice over.  Tom recommended writing a story-board and a script up front.  But if you’re comfortable with the tool and are familiar with demonstrations, I found that this was a quicker way to get started and to iterate to something that works.  Don’t worry about the “ums” and “ars”.
- Play back the recording to make sure you captured the right flow and appropriate pace.  (And check you’re around 3 minutes.)
- Type up the transcript of what you said during the recording.
- Clean up and edit the transcript keeping the same flow and pace.
- Play the captured video and re-record the audio as you read off the edited transcript.  Using a headset, keep the old audio playing at a very low volume so that it can give you an audio cue for when to start and stop speaking.  This may take a bit of practice so as not to be distracted from what you’re saying.
- Clean up the transitions in the video stream using Camtasia.
- Play back and edit accordingly.
- Publish and you’re done.

I published the video to Youtube so that I can embed it into my blog.  It’s also within the Visitor Center of the Xuropa Community for members to reference.  It’s a little hard to say how long it took me as I was multi-tasking as well, so I would say about 2 hours all in all to create the video.

Here’s the result.

Posted under Features, industry, marketing

As we continue through our career we acquire skills and specializations along the way.  This is what builds up in an interesting way to form what we generically call “experience”.

How do you capture this experience within a description of the value you could bring to a new position or project?  After a few years into a career the list can get pretty long and there are nuances that are hard to capture.

For example, it’s been nearly 20 years since I programmed in assembly language.  I’m not a developer, but that experience gives me a good appreciation of what someone in my team would have to go through (if they were unfortunate enough to still be using assembly of course).  Ultimately, a static resume can only take you so far.  And a textual description is cumbersome to wade through.

Your Skills and Specialization Inventory

The Xuropa Professional Profile offers the solution.  Using a self guided tool within the My Profile section you quickly build up your inventory of Skills and Specializations.

Specializations

1. Select the field within which you developed the Specialization: Semiconductor, IP, EDA, Software, or System.
2. Select the area: Engineering or Business
3. Select the domain of your expertise
4. Select whether the specialization is still current or not.

Even if a Specialization is not current, it’s important that it’s taken into consideration.  A business background built upon engineering experience is very valuable.  But no one’s going to ask a sales person to dive in and start writing Verilog.

Skills

The same goes for Skills:

1. Choose the domain: ex. “languages and protocols”
2. Select the sub-domain: ex. “protocols”
3. Check off all of the protocols you have a skill with (or HAD skills with)
4. Select the number of years you used that skill for
5. Select if the skill is current or not

Now when you view your Skills and Specialization inventory you will see everything that you’ve done or used over the years in a simple table.

You will see that this effects your Community Map considerably as well.  All of a sudden you see that different people within the community are now represented as closer to you than before.  This tool shows you close associations and can indicate someone that you have a lot in common with and should connect to.  They could be someone you should have on your team for the next project!

Thank you Cary Snyder for the inspiration for this post!

Posted under career

First coined in 2004, the term “web 2.0″ simultaneously demonstrates both the very best of marketing and the very worst.

“Web 2.0″ has defined an industry category that has driven billions of dollars of investment to bring incredible tools to the world.  At its best it means “everything”, but in reality it means closer to “nothing”.

The term is most ambiguous within the context of the electronic design industry.  To us, an increment means an increment in functionality.  This is not at all the case with the web.  There was not a new release of the internet upon the coining of the term.  No new features were added to any protocols.  All of the tools that have been developed that sit underneath this umbrella are based upon technologies that have been around for years.  Indeed, since the very early days of the web in some cases (re. IM).  So in a sense, “web 2.0″ means “nothing”.

However, “web 2.0″ as a collective handle referring to the new application of older technology is where the term begins to mean “everything”.

There are a number of definitions used that vary upon a theme of “collaboration” or “interaction” and imply tools that enable this: forum, chat, blog, social network, various software-as-a-service platforms (for the enterprise), etc. However, while useful to describe a collection of re-packaged technology (for an extreme example take a look at “Ajax“), it is still lacking.

I prefer to add a bit of wisdom from our industry.  We all know that revision 1.0 of a piece of software is usually “challenging”, to put it mildly.  It is when the software is at revision “2.0″ that it becomes useful and can be applied to solve a problem (without it coming back to bite you).

And this is where we are - we now have web products and platforms that are useful and can solve real problems.  In the consumer space, some “problems” are debatable.  However, in the electronic design industry we have some very large and challenging problems to solve.

• How to re-integrate an industry that is dynamic and geographically distributed
• How to engage with new users emerging on the other side of the world
• How to support users that exist on three or four continents without an army of applications engineers
• How to know the latest technology coming out of…everywhere!

The list is long and the problems large - they stifle growth and limit our efficiency as an industry.

So, is Xuropa “Web 2.0″?

Xuropa is an “Integrated Web 2.0 Platform”.  As has been said in this blog before, there are many point tools out there that address parts of the challenges above.  And these tools use various web 2.0 technologies.  The Xuropa platform is the complete solution.

Posted under business, industry, marketing

We’re very excited over here at Xuropa as the global reach of the community is growing rapidly. We’re getting members sign up from all over the world.

Here is the top ten list of countries:

1. United States
2. India
3. France
4. UK
5. Israel
6. Germany
7. Canada
8. Lithuania
9. Netherlands
10. Singapore

What started out as intuition is proving to be accurate in our statistics.  Specifically, India continues to rise as an electronic design powerhouse and is hungry for information, tools and training.

This situation will continue to become more pronounced as we move forward.  According to an article in Machine Design - India has about 3,500 engineering colleges that graduate over 450,000 engineers every year.

As a technology provider this poses a significant business challenge, especially given this period of tightening budgets.  Vendors need to get products in front of engineers if they want to be included in the next generation of chip or system design.  Even though many of the engineering teams in India are subsidiaries of European or US companies, you cannot rely on “natural proliferation” through a company.  So the paradox stands - how to engage a global user-base without investing in a global physical presence.

The Good News

Setting up remote offices in India is not really an option for many companies.  And flying applications engineers out every month is equally untenable over the long term.  Fortunately, we’ve moved into a different era of engagement.  While it certainly helps to meet a prospective user face-to-face, and for many relationships it is essential, it is no longer necessary to all phases of the process.  For years India has been doing business remotely leveraging the web.  Now technology vendors elsewhere in the world need to capitalize on this cultural reality.

Of course, the adoption process has not changed.  Users in India still need to be taken through the same steps:

1. Introduction
2. Demonstration
3. General Technical Training
4. Application Specific Training
5. Evaluation

There are separate online services available that can help with the first one or two steps of this process (such as LinkedIn or Webex), but these are point tools and not a complete solution.  They don’t provide a single environment that enables you to go through these steps.  Importantly, they do not provide an environment where a potential user can take themselves through these steps.

Fortunately, this is where the Xuropa Platform can be leveraged.  For example, a Xuropa Online Lab is used to carry out steps 1 through 4 (and also quite a bit of 5). Within the Online Lab you have all the tools to manage and carry out technology introductions, demonstrations and hands-on training without any downloads or installs for the user.  Users can even do this themselves while your applications engineer is offline (getting some valuable sleep in between fighting fires!).  Importantly though, the Online Lab provides the information and tools to enable your technical support staff to follow up after the fact using data taken from the lab session run remotely.  Which is useful considering 4:00pm in Mumbai is 2:30am in California!

As Thomas Friedman said, “The World is Flat” and we need to engage.

This is what we do - we enable you to connect your technology with the engineers that will use it.

Posted under business, industry, marketing

The realities of the new economy are upon us.  Finance pundits are no longer debating if the “R word” is an appropriate descriptor, but when it actually started.

In bringing the electronic design industry together, the Xuropa Platform was envisioned to address a number of issues.  The most timely one is costs.  How do you reduce costs using Xuropa?

Reduce Travel Budgets: Use Xuropa Online Labs

Electronic design tools are extremely complex and sophisticated pieces of software.  Educating potential users of your tools can take time and several costly trips (long gone are the days when all of your users were in Silicon Valley).  The process looks something like this:

1. Introductory presentation
2. In-depth technical presentation
3. Demonstration
4. Demonstration to a larger team
5. Training
6. Installation and evaluation
7. Probably more training to a larger team

Sometimes these steps iterate through the same design team.  Alternatively the wider audience to be brought in is at a different location requiring a different on-site visit.

To keep things simple, let’s say everything went smoothly and only 4 different visits were needed.  There are two employees (applications engineer and a business person at minimum) over 4 trips lasting five nights each.  (You’d want to make it a week long trip and meet with other potential users.)  We’ll use flights from San Francisco to Frankfurt as representative and not include any intra-European flights to keep it simple.

Looking at an economy class trip (I used Kayak and took almost the cheapest of everything) including hotel room, flights, rental car, minimum per diem and the cost of your two employees’ time.  The cost to the company is $32,815.  (Nearly a third of this cost is direct expenses, the rest is hidden in salary broken down to an hourly rate.  There were no executives on this trip by the way.)

These costs quickly get out of control once we consider how disaggregated our industry now is.  For example, a single SoC design team can have locations on three different continents and all need to be brought into the decision making process and be trained.

Hidden Costs and Challenges

Unfortunately it’s not always even this simple though.  There’s the opportunity cost of these trips.  Choosing between which users to see and also choosing between the support of existing users and bringing in new ones.  These are tough decisions, especially for small to medium-sized companies.  Unfortunately, the impacts of these decisions are not seen until well after the fact.

The Solution: Xuropa Online Labs

At some point your team will get on a plane and meet with users.  It has to happen.  However, the objectives of the Xuropa Online Labs are to ensure the following:

• Only absolutely necessary trips are made and you have data to decide which
• Your users are as educated as possible before you step on a plane
• Your team is focused on the right users at the right time
• Your team is leveraged across multiple teams from their desk - not spending most of their productive time in the air or in hotel rooms

How to Use Xuropa Online Labs

A Xuropa Online Lab provides an interactive environment where users and applications engineers can collaborate and communicate to accelerate the early stages of the education process.

• Online presentations, flash demonstrations, videos and technical collateral
• Online interactive demonstration
• Online interactive training
• Online self-driven training
• Online self-driven pre-evaluation
• On-site installation and training for evaluation

All of the online education work is using your tool in a secure environment.  The user does not make any downloads, there’s no configuration and no setup required.  It’s ready to go when they are.

Crucially, a key aspect of the process is to provide all of this within the same controlled and secure environment that is easily managed and maintained.

Conclusion

The Xuropa Online Lab enables your application engineering team to support and educate in parallel multiple new prospective users independent of geography or time zone.

A key aspect of the process is the ability of new users to learn about your technology on their own time independent of your applications engineers.

And crucially, this is how a Xuropa Online Lab can reduce those 4 trips down to one very productive one with a high probability of success.  Xuropa saves you money and saves you time.

Posted under Features, business

As we traverse the web, the number of times we have to input a user-name and password is getting annoying.  We agree.

For this and many other reasons, we developed the Xuropa Platform from scratch.  Well, almost…we did build upon the LAMP infrastructure (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP), but all of the features and functions that you use within the environment are developed internally.

This departure from the fashionable “throw-it-together and throw-it-out-there” Web 2.0 strategy enabled us to provide internal Single-Sign-on (SSO) capability.  For example, you can go from browsing the member community to checking out a development tool in an Online Lab seamlessly.  If we’d thrown together the platform using a collection of templates and “frameworks” this would not have been possible.

So, we’ve solved this issue.  However there’s a bigger problem out there - Cross-Platform SSO.

There are a few projects underway to resolve this, and the better known one is OpenID. As they state, “OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity.”

We’re investigating how to build this into the Xuropa Platform.  Interestingly enough though, some of the major platforms aren’t on-board with this yet.  LinkedIn and Facebook being two of them.  Anyway, we’ll get there and I’ll let you know when it’s up and running.

In the meantime, here are some features that we put into the Xuropa Platform to make your time on the web more efficient:

• Aggregation of nearly 50 news & blog feeds from all over the electronic design industry
• Import of LinkedIn profiles
• Import of LinkedIn contacts
• Import of contacts via csv file
• Company directory “wiki-lite”
• Product directory “wiki-lite”

Thanks to Jonathan David for raising this as an important topic.

Posted under Features, Xuropa

We’re very excited to announce the latest release of the Xuropa Platform.

We’ve been working hard to bring new and improved features to help you be more effective in your work and career.

Release objectives:

1. Increase platform interactivity
2. Make it easier to find electronic design professionals
3. Make it easier to manage your Professional Profile
4. Make it easier to build professional networks

We’re most excited about our new Professional Network Map tool.

Xuropa Electronic Design Community Network Map

You will find dozens of enhancements throughout the Xuropa Platform.  However, here is a list of the major features we’ve added and enhanced in this release.

Summary of New and Enhanced Features

1. Visual Professional Network Mapping
   • Network distance mapped by career metrics: Specializations, Skills, Employers, Product Reviews, Ratings, and many more
   • Understand the proximity of connections within your Professional Network
   • Explore the entire community for proximate members you’re not yet connected to
   • Explore Professional Profiles, send messages and make connections to build your network
2. Enhanced Professional Profiles
   • Upload your photograph
   • Easier user interface
   • Enhanced LinkedIn profile import
   • Enhanced Skills and Specialization creation
   • Product Rating and Review linking
3. Community Search & Navigation
   • Find colleagues to make connections
   • Find professionals with the skills you need
   • Find professionals with the experience you’re looking for
   • Navigate the community via your Professional Network Map
   • Navigate the community by Field and Specialization
4. Contact Database Import and Upload
   • Import your contacts from LinkedIn to quickly invite professionals to connect
   • Upload your contacts database to quickly invite professionals to connect
   • Manage your connections and contacts easily
5. Profile Statistics
   • Increase statistics to increase network proximity and better promote your expertise
   • Your Specializations
   • Your Skills
   • Your Product Reviews
   • Your Product Ratings
   • Your Network Connections

Sign in or join the Xuropa Electronic Design Community today and start using the tools to build your career, try new technologies and find new team members.

- The Xuropa Team

Posted under Features, Xuropa