What makes a startup "hot"? To be sure, trade press and blogger attention helps. But from where I sit, the truly hot companies are identified by an increasing frequency of emails from Application Engineers (AEs) and Sales people to the effect of "this new company is getting traction in my accounts - users love ‘em - are we partnering with them?"
Such has been the case with NextOp Software since before their impressive debut at DAC 2010. Yet despite all the positive buzz, NextOp had managed to retain an air of mystery that served them so well during their stealth mode. Hence, upon meeting the NextOp team as they joined the Cadence Connections program, I immediately proposed a brief video interview to help introduce themselves to a wider audience. To my delight, CEO Yunshan Zhu accepted the offer, and in this video he describes the problem space and target user they are going after, the capabilities of "BugScope" itself, and the alignment between their mission and the EDA360 vision paper's call for increased productivity and painless IP integration.
If the video doesn't play, click here.
In parallel to the video, colleague Richard Goering also conducted a more in-depth interview with Yunshan for the Industry Insights blog.
Finally, NextOp will be presenting a paper at the upcoming CDNLive Silicon Valley on October 26, 2010, as well as exhibiting at the "Designer Expo" that evening.
Happy bug hunting!
Joe Hupcey III
On Twitter: @jhupcey -- http://twitter.com/jhupcey
Reference Links
NextOp Software's home page: http://www.nextopsoftware.com
Richard Goering "Industry Insights" interview: "Q&A: NextOp CEO Describes Assertion Synthesis
http://www.cadence.com/Community/blogs/ii/archive/2010/10/10/q-amp-a-nextop-ceo-describes-assertion-synthesis.aspx?postID=1179460
NextOp's high-level overview of Assertion Based verification (ABV)
http://www.nextopsoftware.com/Te_AssertionBasedVerification.html
Post-DAC John Cooley Wiretap: "NextOp Kicked Ass"
http://www.deepchip.com/items/dac10-01.html
Pre-DAC Tech Bites: "NextOp comes out of stealth mode. Tackles assertion synthesis"
http://www.techbites.com/201005072684/myblog/blog/z000e-nextop-comes-out-of-stealth-mode-tackles-assertion-synthesis.html