Between The Lines

When Mike Fister first joined Cadence after spending almost 20 years at Intel, listening to his early public speeches on Cadence and the EDA industry was sort of like listening to a kindergarten violin concerto—a bit rough on the ears but with brief moments of promise.

I remember sitting next to another member of the press at Fister’s first speech at DAC 2002 (?), and the well-noted reporter leaned over and said “do you understand what he’s saying?” Quite frankly I wanted to, but, nope, I can’t say I did. (And was a bit panicked because I was assigned to cover the event and had to file a story—believe it or not real solid content helps write a story).

Fast forward to CDNLive! 2007 I’m proud to report Mike’s talking the talk, as well as walkin the walk: Fister  plowed through a speech where he CLEARLY outlined Cadence’s new “What you design is what you get” marketing push and then introduced a bunch of new technologies Cadence has readied for its 45nm tool set and did it in EDA design speak. Don’t know if it was a script (probably was) but he delivered it well.

“Talking the talk, as well as walkin the walk”? You may be thinking, “isn’t that backwards?" Well, while more than a few folks have noted that Fister seemed to have a rough time as a public speaker (on the topic of EDA) and that he was conveniently “away on business with an important customer” for several other speaking events, and while he has taken heat for mentioning to a business reporter his preference for fine Italian footwear and suits, there’s one undeniable fact: Cadence is back on top and seemingly doing well.

I don’t know to what degree Mike is responsible for the recent success of Cadence, but no doubt, the company is doing well. I’m sure some of the credit has to go to Cadence’s current employees and I’m sure some of the credit goes to ex-employees like Lavi Lev and Jim Hogan, who masterminded acquisitions of companies Simplex, Silicon Perspective, and Plato among others to pull Cadence from the brink of losing the implementation market to the Synopsys/Avanti combo. And quite frankly some of it may simply be attributed to the semiconductor industry buying again (knock on wood)—the skier (the EDA industry) definitely appears to up and waving to the crowd behind the ski boat (the semiconductor industry). But certainly some of the credit has to go to Fister.

Months before Fister left Intel for Cadence, Cadence was a quarter or two late with fielding a 130nm toolset and had briefly dropped to second in the EDA industry behind Synopsys, which had months before acquired Avanti. I wrote a two-part article on Cadence’s struggles when I was at EE Times. Some months later there was a shakeup at Cadence and Fister was brought on board as the CEO. A lot of folks pointed out that while Cadence was buying companies like mad to field a new implementation tool set, Cadence’s seemingly well-compensated executive team at the time should have been more on the ball and had a toolset readied well in advance of the retooling.

I’ve already pointed out that Cadence is doing well, but I also should point out that it certainly appears that Mike’s team has learned from lessons of the past and has put together a DFM toolset in time for the 45nm, where all the fabs are saying DFM is becoming mandatory (Have the other EDA vendors? If you want to know, check out my cover story, “How low can you go? a look at 45-nm-IC-design challenges,” which will be posted this Thursday: 9/13/07). Indeed, Cadence seems to be doing well. And please note, much of this 45nm tool set--indeed a majority of it--came from the acquisitions of Clear Shape, Praesagus and Invarium and technology from IBM (I’m happy to see Cadence is developing tools too—and that is now partially fessing up to the fact that it is acquiring companies).

I remember a couple of weeks after Fister was first hired at Cadence, I went out to dinner with Mike and Adolph Hunter, Cadence’s PR director, who happens to be my neighbor in Almaden. Fister and I talked about a number of topics, ranging from his life before Cadence, life before Intel, about family, the EDA industry and Fister’s hobby of making fine pens. I came away from that dinner understanding that while Mike at least at the time wasn’t yet fully versed in EDA talk (understandable after almost 20 years at Intel)—he possess a skill that lots of folks don’t—he’s very personable—and in particular very effective at making strangers feel like a long-lost buddy.

I remember at the dinner Fister saying “Try the crab cocktail: it’s great at this restaurant” he said to me. “He’ll have the crab cocktail!” Fister commanded the waiter. “Uh, okay?” I found myself saying, though I was set on the less expensive shrimp cocktail.

I can see how a variation of this little exchange could translate into $$$ for Cadence: how that skill could probably come in useful when trying to close a big EDA sales deal:

“Buy three licenses of Encounter GXL: your engineers will love you for it….he’ll have four!”

Welcome to EDA Mike. Now that you talk the talk, I suggest you run for EDAC chairman the next election. The commitment may be a time sucker, but it would really round out your perspective on the EDA industry and probably your resume as a CEO. EDA’s a complex community where M&A of small, innovative companies is commonplace and essential. And I’m sure by now you’ve learned (via your many acquisitions of startups to fill out your flow), a healthy EDA community translates into a healthy Cadence. After that we can talk about the importance and need for true tool interoperability…your buddy (I think), Mike.