Everytime my wife and I are looking to buy a big item, we do our research by reading blogs, articles, and customer reviews. I have to tell you, the single best source for information is through customer reviews and testimonials by actual users. Testimonials not only included the good stuff, but they also include items that cover 'areas of improvement' in a particular product.
I think the concept is applicable to purchasing EDA software as well. The best way to learn about a product is by talking to expert users. I would like to tell you about two events where you have the opportunity to do just that. We have invited a myriad of expert users to discuss their design challenges and talk about solutions that they are using to get ahead of their competition. And oh yes, they will also talk about items that they'd like to see in currently available EDA tools.
1. Power Forward Low-Power Design Summit: in this event over 10 member companies will make technical presentations on the topic of enabling power efficient design from system to silicon. You can hear design challenges that you might be struggling with today and solutions that you should be using today. Find out more at www.powerforward.org.
2. Mixed-Signal Summit: Get your signals straight at the first annual mixed-signal design summit. Become part of a community and discuss applications and methodologies with expert users. Find out what it takes to be ready to tackle mixed-signal designs. Find out more at www.secure-register.net/cadence/ms_summit.
But don't stop there. Come back to this blog and challenge our presenters and participants by asking them more questions about today's design challenges, what it takes to get ahead of the competition. If you hear something that needs to be elaborated, but you didn't have time to ask during the event, come back to this blog and post your question. If you see something that needs to be highlighted, good or bad, I encourage you to come back to this blog and post your comments.
You can call it tools, solutions, methodologies, or products; the best way to learn about it/them is by listening to current users.
Soheil Modirzadeh