101 with Richard Goering : The technical blogging guru

Richard Goering - retired EDA editor

The digital world has connected people across geographies without in person meeting or talking. It is interesting to see the cross pollination of ideas, thoughts and mentoring that travels across boundaries flying on the wings of this connected world. The bond developed when connected on these platforms is no less than a real one. I happen to have a similar bond with Richard Goering as a religious follower of his technical articles for more than a decade. So when Richard announced his retirement, I requested him for an interview to be published on this blog. Humble as he is all these years, he accepted this request and what follows is a short interview with the blogging guru whom I admire a lot for his succinct yet comprehensive posts all these years.

 

Q: Richard, please share a brief introduction to your career?

 

I have always been a writer. I graduated from U.C. Berkeley with a degree in journalism in 1973. In 1974, living in what was to become Silicon Valley, I worked for a long-dead publication called Northern California Electronics News. I wrote an article that described electron beam lithography as the “next big thing” in semiconductor manufacturing. Today this technology is still emerging.

 

In the early 1980s I was a technical writer in Kansas City, Missouri for a company that made computer-controlled bare board testers. I took classes at the University of Missouri in Fortran, Pascal, and assembly language. I still remember going to the campus computer centre with a stack of punched cards, hoping that one error wouldn’t keep the whole program from compiling.

 

In 1984 I joined the staff of Computer Design magazine, and wrote several articles about test. Shortly afterwards I was asked to go cover a new area called “CAE” (computer-aided engineering). This was, of course, the discipline that became “EDA” and I have written about it ever since. I was the EDA editor for Computer Design (4 years) and then for EE Times (17 years). I worked for Cadence, primarily as a blogger, for the past 6 years.

 

Q: When did you realize it’s time to start blogging and why?

 

I actually had a blog during my final years at EE Times, which ended in 2007. At Cadence I wrote the Industry Insights blog. Today there are few traditional publications left, especially in print, and it appears that blogs are a primary source of information for design and verification engineers.

 

Q: What are the three key disruptive technologies you observed that had a high impact on the semiconductor industry?

 

From an EDA perspective, the most significant change was the move from gate-level schematics to RTL design with VHDL or Verilog. This move provided a huge leap in productivity. It also allowed verification engineers to work at a higher level of abstraction. Looking more closely at verification, there was a shift from directed testing to constrained-random test generation. This came along with coverage metrics, executable verification plans, and languages such as “e” from Verisity. I think a third disruptive technology is emerging just now – it’s the importance of software in SoC design, and the need for software-driven verification. 

 

Q: When did you start hearing the need for a verification engineer in the ASIC design cycle?

 

I think this goes back many years. Most chip design companies have separate verification teams. Nowadays there’s a need for design and verification engineers to work more closely together, and for designers to do some top-level verification, often using formal or static techniques.

 

Q: Please share your experiences with the evolution of verification?

 

At EE Times, I wrote about many new verification companies and covered key product announcements. At Cadence I was more focused on Cadence products, but I continued to cover DVCon and other verification related industry events. 

 

Q: Do you believe that today verification accounts for 70% of the ASIC design cycle efforts?

 

I think we must be very careful with statements such as these. The question is, 70% of what? Are we looking at the entire ASIC/SoC design cycle, from software development through physical design? Or are we considering just “front end” hardware design? Are we talking about block-level verification or looking at the whole SoC and the integration between IP blocks? The 70% claim is about marketing, not engineering.

 

Q: What are the key technologies to look forward for in near future?

 

I think you’re going to see software-driven verification methodologies that employ “use case” testing. The idea here is to specify system-level verification scenarios that involve use cases, and to automatically generate portable, constrained-random tests. The tests are “software driven” because they can be applied through C code running on embedded processor models. Another emerging concept is the “formal app.” A formal app is an automated program that handles a specific task, such as X state propagation. Today most providers of formal verification offer formal apps.

 

Q: What is that you would miss about our industry the most?

 

EDA is a dynamic industry. There is always something new and exciting. I will miss the constant innovation and the spirit that drives it.

 

Q: Words of wisdom to the readers?

 

Don’t be afraid to try something new. Increasing chip and system complexity will drive the need for more productive design and verification methodologies. Job descriptions will change as software, hardware, analog, digital, and verification engineers all need to work more closely together.

 

Thank you Richard for your answers.

 

Your writings have helped in spreading the technology and inspired many of us to do it ourselves too. Wish you happiness and good health!!!