Tuning into Jim

I just read a blog that indicated that people would rather make their electronic devices easier to use than to have their feature sets constantly expanded. Ya think?

To me, this is not an astounding revelation. For years I have been promoting ease of use as one of the top (if not the top) reason consumers buy one camera, cell phone, or DVR over another, even at a price premium. Let’s face it – most of us don’t use half the features on our digital cameras and I know that even as I take advantage of so many of the features of my iPhone, I realize that there are several I haven’t even considered. And I, for one, always read the evaluations on the Web of new products I am considering buying, especially the reviews of how easy it is to use those products.

Speaking of the iPhone, this is a prime example of a manufacturer – Apple – getting it right. When first introduced almost two years ago, the virtual keyboard, lack of “real” buttons and intuitive nature of the command hierarchy on the iPhone put other cell phone manufacturers to shame. The result now is that several of these other cell phone vendors are duplicating many of the iPhone’s features for their own products. This points out what I consider a big problem in the consumer electronics product arena – the push for product feature-set enhancement over the ability to learn and use the product quickly and easily.

The need to make products easier to learn and use transcends the consumer marketing place. A few years ago, some EDA vendors realized the value of developing and selling design tools that did not need several days of training to use and several more months of use to gain proficiency in their use. While not pervasive throughout the industry, the ease-of-use concept has gained a foothold in the EDA community, both on the development and the buyer side. Similarly, semiconductor IP vendors, at least the good ones, realize that the easier it is to implement their products in chips, the more attractive they are to IP integrators. Having a good service component to your company also is very valuable to companies selling products such as EDA tools and IP.

Vendors of consumer electronic products need to change their way of thinking from “I need more whiz-bang features than my competitor” to “my product needs to be easier to use compared to that of the competition.” This is particularly true as the consumer electronics marketplace expands globally and includes a broader range of potential customers with a more diverse set of educational backgrounds. Right now, learning to use your new MP3 player makes setting the clock on the old VHS recorder seem like child’s play. No, wait – kids could always do a better job at that than most adults.

Unless you have been living on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific the past few months, you are well aware of the serious financial straits our country is in right now. The latest business to come under the microscope is the automotive industry, particularly the Big Three (Chrysler, General Motors and Ford). Why am I not surprised?

For years, the U.S. automotive giants have been blind to what is needed to stay competitive in a global industry, particularly with respect to the need for more fuel-efficient vehicles. By continuously pumping lobbying money into Congress, they have been able to effectively slow down the inclusion of technological advancements that have been available to increase mpg. As a result, U.S. automakers’ market share has been steadily dropping over the years. This is not a surprise to anyone; what does open my eyes, however, is the discrepancy in compensation between the U.S. Big Three and Japan’s Big Three (Honda, Nissan and Toyota).

According to Mark Perry, University of Michigan professor of economics, average hourly compensation for the U.S. Big Three is $72.31. For Japan’s Big Three, it is $44.20. Cost of living aside, this is a huge difference in compensation (wages, medical benefits, vacation, etc.) and is an example of why the U.S. auto industry is in such dire straits (a shrinking market and over-bloated compensation is a recipe for failure). Many of these highly compensated U.S. auto workers will be out of work in the not-too-distant future, as well as many employees of component and subsystem suppliers to the U.S. car makers.

Throwing more money into the automakers coffers is not the answer without guaranteed changes within the industry. We in the semiconductor industry are an integral part of automotive development, with semiconductor content in cars rising each year. We supply technology that can assist car makers in realizing more efficient vehicles for less money. However, more and better silicon isn’t the only answer. The serious problems in the U.S. automobile business have been years in the making and combine the greed and, yes, stupidity of U.S. auto industry management and workers along with, of course, the federal government. It’s going to take a lot of serious thought and compromise to right the U.S. automotive business and there are no guarantees that this ship will still not go down with all aboard despite rescue efforts.

A few days ago a friend emailed me the link to a YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww) from a company called Boston Dynamics. The video was of BigDog, a radio-controlled, quadruped robot carrying a 300-plus pound payload over uneven terrain, snow and ice, moving and staying upright even when kicked by a human. I don’t often get excited about videos (heaven knows there are enough of them around on every subject imaginable), but BigDog’s is absolutely fascinating. It brought to mind an area of engineering that many of us in the semiconductor field don’t hear or think enough about – robotics – or, even more specifically, mechatronics.

By combining aspects of microelectronics, mechanical engineering and control systems, mechatronics successfully encompasses multiple engineering disciplines to develop products that come into our lives in many diverse areas. Some of the more interesting examples are the Segway personal transportation system, Roomba automated vacuum cleaner and bomb-sniffing robots used by police.

Too often, we electronics types are too involved with “our�? engineering world, that of the transistor and its non-silicon support subsystems, such as batteries (for power) and antennas (for wireless data transmitting and receiving). Besides the occasional motor control, sensor conditioning and camera manipulation, for the most part chip designers are involved with what happens on the silicon and meeting the specs required to work in a particular (electronics) system. Systems knowledge is usually confined to the electronics system.

BigDog is a great example of a well-engineered, multi-discipline system. The future growth of the semiconductor industry will come as chip engineering continues to merge with mechanics, fluidics, biology and other scientific field of study. We should all watch the BigDog video and start thinking outside of the silicon box.

It was a busy week in Silicon Valley recently with two interesting and free one-day events taking place two days apart, the Common Platform Tech Forum and the GSA Expo. These types of events, financed by sponsorships and exhibitors, allow attendees to obtain a lot of information about industry segments and, often, trends in a relatively short time. Having attended both, I came to a conclusion – there are some interesting developments taking place in the options you have available for chip processing.

The birth and growth of the independent semiconductor foundry business several years ago marked a change in how chip developers could have their designs processed. Up until then, the rapidly rising cost of a silicon processing facility meant that only the largest semiconductor companies could afford to have wafer fabs dedicated to leading-edge silicon processes. By utilizing economies of scale achieved from processing chips from several companies, pure-play foundries fueled the growth of the fabless semiconductor industry and allowed even very small (and often highly innovative) chip companies to bring their products to market.

Besides taking advantage of volume wafer processing, successful foundries were also able to achieve business clout and bargaining status by developing partnerships with EDA, IP and design services organizations. This permitted the foundries to take on the role of “one-stop shops�? for many of their customers. In fact, IP and EDA relationships often defined the value-added features of one foundry over another.

The Common Platform consortium represents, to me, further evolution in semiconductor process availability. Developing silicon processes that can go to multiple foundries, in this case IBM, Chartered and Samsung, gives customers flexibility in where they manufacture chips and also solves the problem for many companies of having a second wafer processing source. But the Consortium has gone beyond multiple foundry availability. With a Joint Development Alliance that includes Freescale Semiconductor, Infineon, ST Microelectronics and Toshiba, the Consortium has added valuable knowledge and experience in advanced chip design, which they use in the development of next-generation process nodes, currently targeted to 32nm and 28nm. The Alliance is what gives the Common Platform Consortium an edge over pure-play foundries such as TSMC and UMC in process node development.

The GSA Expo, a broad gathering of EDA vendors, foundries, IP developers and chip companies, offers a large group of exhibitors along with several keynotes and technical sessions covering a wide range of semiconductor topics. As in past years, I find the GSA Expo a good place to discuss industry trends and issues with colleagues, such as the pluses and minuses of pure-play foundries vs. process-platform consortiums.

I think the Common Platform model is a good one and will no doubt lead to the formation of other successful process development consortiums down the road. If nothing else, these cooperative efforts in process node development will put pressure on the pure-play foundries to stay on their toes and not get complacent about their R&D efforts.

I read in my local newspaper earlier this week that Carnegie-Mellon professor Randy Pausch died at age 47 of pancreatic cancer. Some of you may have heard of Randy late last year for his “Last Lecture�? at CMU on “Achieving your Childhood Dreams,” which has had almost five million views on YouTube (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo&feature=related). Randy, a husband and father of three small children, knew about his terminal condition in 2006 and died wanting no sympathy (his own words) because he had been able to achieve many of the seemingly lofty goals he set before himself as a child. In other words, he had taken the proper perspective of work vs. “life outside of work�? and been happy with his priorities.

Having lived and worked in the Bay Area for over 30 years, I have seen many colleagues and friends with a “Silicon Valley�? mentality – working long hours, including weekends, and feeling a need to be connected 24/7. To me, this is fine so long as it doesn’t interfere with an enjoyable lifestyle and fulfilling relationships with family and friends. I love what I do (currently marketing for a memory IP provider) and I too am immersed in a busy work schedule, but I also see the need for and importance of reasonable R&R, doing things I enjoy doing.

The many orchards and hot houses that populated Silicon Valley when I arrived here in 1974 are long gone, replaced by silicon factories and design facilities, along with the housing needed to support the people working there. But there are still roses to smell and opportunities to live your childhood dreams in what is one of the most lovely and opportunity-filled regions in our country. For those of you who live here, take time to enjoy your stay along with getting the satisfaction you do from your work. Randy had the right idea – you don’t get a second chance so make the most of the first one.

And take time to see and hear Randy’s Last Lecture – you won’t be disappointed.

At the Design Automation Conference earlier this month, I participated in a breakfast roundtable to discuss the ease (or lack thereof) of integrating third-party silicon IP into a design. Details on the roundtable were discussed in my last blog (June 4), but my co-participants – Steve Leibson of Tensilica, Adam Traidman of ChipEstimate.com and Navraj Nandra of Synopsys – and I were fairly consistent in our view that if will be very difficult to make third-party IP integration a turnkey operation.

At this time there appear to be three obstacles to “easy�? IP implementation on a chip: lack of standardization about what constitutes quality IP and a “good�? IP supplier; the fact that every reuse of a piece of IP constitutes putting the IP into a different system environment on the chip, each with its own unique interface and timing considerations; and IP and overall chip complexity continue to increase as process nodes shrink. Furthermore, when you consider analog/mixed-signal IP, the IP integration task becomes even more daunting.

The first barrier to turnkey IP integration, lack of standardization, was addressed for a time by the now dissolved VSIA. While the Alliance made progress in IP qualification standardization, no one as yet has successfully continued this development although the IEEE, which picked up the VSIA work, should show some further improvement in qualification standards down the road. What are also needed are customers who demand a global quality IP standard for selecting IP and IP vendors; right now, too many companies rely on internal means of gauging quality

Successful IP reuse will continue to be a problem due to system-level issues when implementing IP in an SoC. As much as we would like to think that we can treat IP as a separate entity, there are too many interactions on the chip to do so – each SoC represents a different set of requirements for IP integration and verification.

Finally, as IP and overall chip complexity continues to grow, there is an increasing need for better “system-like�? tools that operate on an SoC and its blocks. Such tools will eventually be available for IP integration, but what is available currently is not adequate.

So, yes, my short-term view of turnkey IP integration is a negative one. An IP supplier must become more of a partner to the IP integrator and not just a supplier of IP. The suppliers, along with possible third-party “IP integration facilitators,�? similar to design houses but focusing on IP implementation, must provide a higher level of service to the integrators. In other words, look at the absence of a turnkey IP integration methodology as an opportunity for more engineering jobs in the semiconductor industry.

Well, whether or not it becomes a debate is up-in-the-air, but there will be a Wednesday morning breakfast roundtable during DAC on the topic, “Can IP Integration be an SoC Methodology or is it Always Ad-Hoc?�? that should be very interesting.

Most of the IP integration community agrees that implementing third-party silicon IP on a chip is generally not easy, due to a variety of reasons including the lack of standardization in both accessing IP quality and actually putting it on a chip. However, is this permanent or just a temporary situation?

The roundtable will be moderated by Ron Wilson, Executive Editor of EDN, who will be sure to keep the roundtable participants, including yours truly, honest and in line. The four participating companies, besides Sidense, include ChipEstimate.com, Synopsys and Tensilica. Ron will have some probing questions, concerning how to search for “good�? third-party IP and how to optimize IP vendor and user efforts for IP integration and verification, at the ready, but the idea is to have YOU bring up your concerns and opinions to us.

So – if you would like to mix breakfast and a little business, drop by the Hilton Hotel at 8AM Wednesday to see if turnkey IP is a myth or a future reality. You can pre-register at http://www.sidense.com/index.php?option=com_facileforms&Itemid=59&lang=en or just come on by. Yes – I do have my own opinion about turnkey IP, but you will have to come to the breakfast to hear it.

I recently attended the annual TSMC Technology Symposium in San Jose, at which TSMC’s Vice President of Design and Technology Platforms, Dr. Fu-Chieh Hsu, presented a talk on, “The Green Design Concept.�? Dr. Hsu proceeded to describe the world’s current power needs – a staggering 300 trillion Watt-hours/day – and how the silicon-based devices in the computing, communications and consumer markets, while only representing a small fraction of that number, still account for over 1 trillion Watt-hours/day, a number that is rapidly growing.

Dr. Hsu continued by explaining how both the semiconductor manufacturing and design communities can help minimize the power needs of silicon-based equipment. On the silicon foundry side, technology and production quality along with environmentally friendly production techniques all contribute to minimizing energy use during chip production. For their part, chip designer can develop energy-efficient designs in areas such as fuel-efficient vehicles, smart office management systems, and intelligent lighting and appliances in the home. There is nothing really new with these ideas. However, designers can also do a lot to minimize “silicon waste�? through techniques such as minimizing on-chip logic, design margins, timing slack, and circuit area, and maximizing the use of silicon-proven IP. Naturally, these techniques require good design tools and accurate models from and close cooperation with EDA vendors, along with partnerships with semiconductor foundries, to develop “just right�? designs instead of “over designs.�? It also means that chip designers have to accept a new way of designing chips, minimizing the over-design techniques that they feel are required to provide the safety margins necessary for acceptable yields. The benefit to the designer is a smaller, more efficiently designed chip and higher profit margin.

The concept of “Green Silicon�? is a good one and a concept that we can all embrace. Yes, it will take significant effort on everyone’s part, but isn’t the end result – better silicon power efficiency and more profit on the bottom line – worth it? As Dr. Hsu stated at the closing of his presentation, “Green Designs lead to Greenbacks.�?

My wife got me a very nice Christmas gift – a high-end Plantronics Bluetooth headset for my cell phone.  When she told me where she bought it (Radio Shack), I checked the price, which was $100.  I then went on the Web and “shopped around,�? finding the same headset for as low at $60.

My next task was reviewing the headset’s features on-line (I still had not opened the box).  Lo and behold – it had a lot of nice capabilities, including many that I would never need or use (think Microsoft Office and how many of the capabilities in Word, Excel and PowerPoint you really make use of).  Over the next couple of days I looked around for a headset with the features I did need, at a more reasonable price, finally buying an $80 Jabra unit that, with rebates, was only $30 at Fry’s.  Finally, I returned the Plantronics headset to Radio Shack.

The purpose of this story is not to show what a great shopper I am (that point is debatable), but to impress upon you the importance of buying only what you need in a product, not what someone else (spouse, friend, salesman) thinks you need.  Unless, of course, you like to waste your money.  This philosophy applies to virtually any purchased item, but is particularly relevant to electronics products and their rapidly growing feature sets.  Whether in the market for a new computer, flat screen TV, cell phone or music player – determine what you really “need�? and then add on your most important “wants.�?  This should guide your purchase decision, not the bells and whistles you’ll never ring or blow.

Oh, by the way, when I discussed my headset ideas with my wife, she agreed with the decision to buy the far less expensive unit.  More money for us to spend on other things was probably in the back of her mind.  Smart woman!

The other day I was watching a segment on 60 Minutes about the Geek Squad, the company formed in the mid-1990s to help consumers set up computer, home-theatre and other electronic systems.  The premise was simple – most electronic systems in the consumer space are too complicated for the average person to tackle successfully.  Remember the joke about all those VCRs blinking 12:00 because no one could set their clocks?  If you think things were difficult then, look at what we have now.

The common themes in consumer electronics are – add more features, shrink the footprint, decrease power consumption and reduce prices over time.  Vendors have done these jobs very well.  However, along the way they forgot to do one thing – make it easy for the average consumer to buy an electronic device and be able to set it up and use it WITHOUT OUTSIDE HELP.  I’ve been immersed in Silicon Valley electronics for over 30 years and still have to really put my mind to it when I buy a new gizmo.  Imagine the plight of a middle-aged gas station attendant somewhere in a small town in Iowa.

Both electronics vendors and their customers – you and I – need to place more emphasis on the human interface – making it easier for the average person to set up and learn to use an electronic device, be it an HDTV, MP3 player, digital camera, or cell phone (to name just a few).   Low prices are nice, but how many of us really use all the whiz-bang features in your new electronic “toy�? (or even in your version of Microsoft Office)?  Make ease of learning and ease of use two factors to consider when shopping for a new phone or camera.  Consider what features you really need (not what sound impressive) and then check out the competing products with that feature set.

Successful vendors of consumer electronics should be (and sometimes are) the companies that really do consider the ability of a potential customer to deal with their products.  Consider the iPhone.  Its success, I believe, has been based as much on its easy-to-use and understandable touchscreen and virtual buttons than on what you can do with it. 

Product understanding and ease of use are the real keys to consumer electronics differentiation.  If more of us kept this in mind while shopping, then maybe more of the vendors of these products would wise up.