By Russ Henke on 10/30/2008 7:27 AM

Further to the recent blog entry in this space on October 26, 2008, entitled, “Cadence Update…”, as well as to prior related blog entries, still another news item has appeared since:

On October 30, 2008 Dyer & Berens LLP announced that a class action has been commenced in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of all purchasers of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. common stock during the period between April 23, 2008 and October 22, 2008.

The case is entitled Hu v. Cadence Design Systems, Inc., Michael J. Fister, William Porter and Kevin S. Palatnik.

The complaint charges Cadence and certain of its current and former officers with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

By Russ Henke on 10/28/2008 10:34 AM

Having failed so miserably to help the US economy by repeatedly cutting interest rates over the last year (the rate stood at 5.25% as late as the spring of 2007), the Federal Reserve is expected to try it once again – planning to cut its target interest rate on October 29, 2008 by another one-half a percentage point (down to 1 percent … recall the definition of insanity, etc., etc…). One percent is the level to which the Fed cut interest rates in 2003, still trying to recover from Bush 43’s first recession in 2001.Notwithstanding the relative ineffectiveness of such interest rate reductions, the cuts nevertheless acutely hurt the segment of Americans who are on fixed incomes, and who for years may have frugally saved some money for retirement, only to see their already-meager interest income from their small nest eggs slashed once again.Not surprisingly, falling US home prices, chronic US unemployment and sinking stock & cash investments have driven consumer confidence to record lows in October. The Conference...

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By Russ Henke on 10/26/2008 8:10 AM

Further to the recent blog entry in this space on October 23, 2008, entitled, “Cadence Woes Continue…”, as well as to prior related blog entries, two more news items have appeared since:

1. Cadence shares dropped to $2.70 each in after hours trading on Friday October 24, 2008, further reducing Cadence’s market cap to just north of $700 million (Mentor Graphics’ market cap stands at $642 million, and Synopsys' is at $2.33 billion).

2. A law firm called Finkelstein Thompson LLP (Washington, DC & San Francisco) announced it “was investigating Cadence Design Systems following the announcement that Cadence was indefinitely delaying its third-quarter earnings report and expected to restate its financial reports for the first half of 2008.”

By Russ Henke on 10/23/2008 7:09 AM

Over and above the Cadence troubles outlined in the blog entry in this space on October 19, 2008, called, “EDA Executives Pay the Price – and probably, so will many other employees”, the company announced still more problems yesterday when it postponed its promised final Q3 financial results. On October 22, Cadence announced that “it is reviewing, in conjunction with the company’s independent accountants and legal advisors, the recognition of revenue related to customer contracts signed during the first quarter of 2008.” Apparently, some $24 million in revenue associated with those contracts was booked in the first quarter but should have been booked over the duration of the contracts starting in the second quarter. Should this prove to be the case, Cadence will have to restate both Q1 and Q2.In postponing yesterday’s Q3 earnings announcement, the company reiterated its earlier Q3 guidance from July 23, 2008: the company expects Q3 revenue to be in the range of $235 to $245 million; third quarter GAAP net loss...

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By Jack Ring on 10/21/2008

One viewpoint quantifies the worth of a system by actual or expected Quality, Parsimony and Beauty. Quality in the Phil Crosby sense as "conformance to requirements." Parsimony meaning no sufficient alternative requires less goods in the economic and ecologic sense. Beauty, in the sense of Gelertner's Machine Beauty, Basic Books, 1998.   

Now comes news in  the August proceedings of ACM's SIGGRAPH, The Sum of Your Facial Parts,that a focus group of men and women selected the most attractive faces from a sample set then researchers at Tel Aviv University distilled 234 significant measurements between facial features, including the distances between lips and chin, the forehead and the eyes, and between the eyes. They devised an algorithm that altered an image according to agreed-upon standards of attractiveness while producing a result that left the face completely recognizable.  

Can we similarly devise a list of significant measurements for improving system architectures, functional designs, or object...

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By Russ Henke on 10/19/2008 4:21 PM

The “goings on” in the Electronics Design Automation (EDA) industry have frequently appeared in blog entries here. The last entry appeared as recently as October 17, 2008, entitled, “Autodesk and ESCCAD”, which discussed the latest example of the unmistakable trend of merging Mechanical CAD and CAE with Electronic Design Automation. Prior to that article, a related entry appeared on October 10, 2008 called, “Mentor and Flomerics - Tighter EDA/MCAD Collaboration.” And before that an associated entry appeared on September 19, 2008, entitled, “More EDA and MCAD Collaboration.” Other recent blog entries in this space commented on the possible deals between EDA vendors themselves. See for example the August 16, 2008 entry called, “The Big 3 EDA Vendors to remain the Big 3 – for now!”It turns out that the central topic of that August 16 blog submission, which dealt with the failed attempt of Cadence to take over Mentor this summer, is directly connected to the fresh news that broke on October 15, 2008, that the CEO...

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By Russ Henke on 10/17/2008 7:24 AM

The unmistakable trend of merging Mechanical CAD and CAE with Electronic Design Automation has been frequently highlighted in multiple blog entries in this space. The most recent entry appeared on October 10, 2008 called, “Mentor and Flomerics - Tighter EDA/MCAD Collaboration.” An entry before that appeared on September 19, 2008, entitled, “More EDA and MCAD Collaboration.”On October 15, 2008, Autodesk announced it had completed the acquisition of Elektro-CAE-Software GmbH (ECS), a provider of electrical computer-aided design (CAD) software from Mensch und Maschine Deutschland GmbH.ECSCAD software is said to complement AutoCAD Electrical software, which is used to create schematic-based designs. Both product lines are built on the AutoCAD platform. Autodesk says it can now enhance functionality and performance for both ECSCAD and AutoCAD Electrical customers."The acquisition of the ECSCAD technology extends Autodesk's leadership in Digital Prototyping and will allow European electrical design engineers to integrate...

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By Russ Henke on 10/10/2008 5:12 AM

The unmistakable trend of merging mechanical CAD and CAE with Electronic Design Automation has been frequently highlighted in multiple blog entries in this space. The most recent entry appeared on September 19, 2008, entitled, “More EDA and MCAD Collaboration.”

On that date, the three-year cooperation between EDA vendor Mentor Graphics and MCAD vendor PTC was discussed, but in previous blog entries here, the pursuit of Flomerics by Mentor Graphics was described.

Today Mentor announced final completion of its acquisition of Flomerics Group PLC., a UK-based supplier of computational fluid dynamics analysis products.

Flomerics becomes the Mechanical Analysis Division of Mentor, headed by Gary Carter, former CEO of Flomerics, reporting to Henry Potts, vice president of Mentor Graphics and general manager of the Systems Design Division in Longmont, CO. This acquisition not only complements Mentor’s existing offerings in printed circuit board (PCB) systems design with advanced electronic cooling...

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By Jack Ring on 10/1/2008

http://www.pbsrg.com/overview/cib-task-group-61/annual-meeting/

The Performance Based Studies Research Group at Arizona State University is hosting Task Group 61 of the "International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction." The CIB provides a global network for international exchange and cooperation in research and innovation in building and construction, in support of an improved building process and of improved performance of the built environment.

By Jack Ring on 10/1/2008

As societies' problems increase in extent, variety and ambiguity, popularly (mis)labeled "complexity," the design profession is not keeping pace. Failed projects abound and leaders in both sponsor and responder communities seek to ignore the really "wicked" problems. The recent emphasis on System of Systems highlights the intellectual shortfall in dealing with complexity. This presents an emerging, billion dollar opportunity for new methods, techniques and tools for whole system design. Two facets are important. One concerns original and revision design. The other concerns assessment of the viability of the design, i.e., check your work. The latter is prudent at each stage of a whole system design, e.g., conceptual model, chronological model, architecture model, buildable model, as built, as deployed, and as (about to be) applied.

It is hard to assess the viability of a simple system, e.g., a computer program intended to run on a specified piece of hardware, because of the proliferation of cross connections...

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