The IEC Executive Forum @ DesignCon is positioned to provide a unique educational opportunity to industry leaders. Executives will have the opportunity to meet, network, and trade knowledge and expertise in an interactive educational atmosphere.

Three panels - one on Wednesday morning and two on Wednesday afternoon - will feature an impressive array of industry thinkers sharing their insights, perspectives, predictions, and visions in a dynamic, discussion-oriented format. Attendees will take from this Executive Forum the tools and guidance they need to forge ahead in the world of electronic design.

What are the trade offs? Designs that were done in ASICs in the past are done by FPGAs today, faster and for less cost. Complex FPGA design is driving new design approaches. ASIC designs are specialized, offer power and flexibility, and accommodate large designs where FPGA falls short. With so much at stake, where should your company's focus lie? Or is it more of a middle area - a place where structured ASIC can fill the gap? Join industry leaders in both FPGA and ASIC in what is sure to be a lively discussion about the pros and cons of both, the structured ASIC solution as a viable third choice, as well as how all three are shaping the future of EDA.

Chairperson

David Bursky, Editor-at-Large, Electronic Design Magazine

Mr. Bursky has been responsible for defining the direction and content of Electronic Design. In addition to the editorial management responsibility, he has covered all aspects of digital semiconductor technology, from processes to architectural definition, and from testing to circuit applications, for the magazine. He is one of several Electronic Design editors awarded the Jesse H. Neal Award for Editorial Excellence.

Speakers

Steve Douglass, Senior Director, New Product Development, Advanced Products Group, Xilinx

Mr. Douglass is responsible for embedded IP design and IC CAD. He is the program manager for Xilinx's most advanced FPGA offerings, the Virtex-II Pro^TM and Virtex-II ProX^TM product families. Prior to joining Xilinx, Mr. Douglass worked at Cypress Semiconductor for 12 years in the Programmable Logic Division, holding a variety of design and management positions, and developing several programmable logic families.

Bryan Lewis, Director and Chief Analyst, Gartner Dataquest

Mr. Lewis has responsibility for tracking and evaluating market movements, forecasting markets, and tracking technology trends. He is a key speaker at numerous conferences and consults with a wide range of worldwide clients. Mr. Lewis joined Dataquest in 1985 and founded Dataquest's ASIC/SoC/FPGA research.

Jim Smith, Director, EDA Vendor Relations, Altera

Mr. Smith is responsible for managing the relationships with all 3rd party EDA vendors. He joined Altera in April 2001. Before that time, he was the director of business development for ASIC and MPU for Toshiba America Electronics Corporation, where he managed the embedded processor ASIC business for Toshiba in North America.

Richard Tobias, Vice President, ASIC and Foundry Business Unit, Toshiba America Electronic Components

Mr. Tobias is responsible for all marketing, field technical marketing, application engineering, production planning, technical information systems and the North American design centers for the ASIC and Foundry product line. Previously, he held the position of vice president of engineering for the System IC (SIC) Business Unit of TAEC.

Ronnie Vasishta, Vice President, Technology Product Marketing, LSI Logic

Mr. Vasishta oversees the company-wide strategic technology direction and direct marketing support for customers, sales, vertical market groups, and design centers. He is also charged with the definition and development of LSI Logic's technology products, including silicon technologies, advanced packaging, mixed signal, embedded memory, I/Os, and methodologies.

Since 1999, several major EDA companies have shifted their licensing models from traditional perpetual licenses to time-based subscription models with ratable revenue. With no one flavor fitting all, a range of other licensing schemes coexist and new, creative models are emerging. This panel of executives from EDA companies represents a spectrum of EDA license models and will discuss the associated issues and challenges. The neoclassical economist Jean-Baptiste Say's Law of Markets says that if you align your customer's business model with your own, you'll participate in the wealth creation of your customer. In line with this economic view, the moderator, a semiconductor vendor, and major buyer of EDA tools will contend that the beneficial effects of changing to a tapeout-based model would ripple through the entire electronics industry, fueling growth of the EDA industry and spurring innovation.

Chairperson

Richard Tobias, Vice President, ASIC and Foundry Business Unit, Toshiba America Electronic Components

Mr. Tobias is responsible for all marketing, field technical marketing, application engineering, production planning, technical information systems and the North American design centers for the ASIC and Foundry product line. Previously, he held the position of vice president of engineering for the System IC (SIC) Business Unit of TAEC.

Speakers

Graham Bell, Senior Director, Marketing, Nassda

Mr. Bell joined Nassda in early 2001 from Averant where he served as director of marketing. He has more than 16 years of EDA experience and has held key marketing positions at Synopsys, Viewlogic Systems, Avista Design Systems and MicroSim.

Jacques Benkoski, President and Chief Executive Officer, Monterey Design Systems

Mr. Benkoski joined Monterey in 1998 as executive vice president of sales and marketing. Previously, he was director of strategic sales and general manager of Southern Europe for Synopsys. Prior to that he was vice president of European operations for EPIC Design Technology. He has also held various research and management positions at STMicroelectronics, IMEC, and IBM.

Thomas Heydler, Chief Executive Officer, Barcelona Design

Mr. Heydler has more than 17 years of experience in the area of general management, sales, marketing, strategic planning and international operations. He joined Barcelona Design in September 2001 from InterPro Business Solutions, where he was president and CEO, responsible for repositioning and streamlining the business to become a leader in procurement management services.

John Kibarian, President and Chief Executive Officer, PDF Solutions

Mr. Kibarian has served as PDF Solutions' President since founding the company in 1991 and was appointed CEO in 2000. Prior to launching PDF, Mr. Kibarian was a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University's SEMATECH Center for rapid yield learning, where he developed algorithms for diagnosing process variations based on electrical test data and for yield maximization based on circuit optimization and statistical process and device simulation.

Meeting the challenge of completing more complex designs without sacrificing timely delivery makes continual improvement of a design team's skills, design processes, and tools of principal concern to managers. How do you plan for having the right tools in place for the workforce to be successful? How do you ensure you have the right skills and processes in a development organization to meet these challenges? This Executive Forum presents perspectives on these questions from executives who must answer them every day.

Chairperson

Mark Pierpoint, Vice President, Marketing, Agilent Technologies

Mr. Pierpoint was named vice president and general manager of the Multi-Industry Solutions marketing organization in 2002. Prior to that, he was vice president of Agilent's Internet Infrastructure and Broadband Access Solutions unit beginning in 2000. Before these assignments, Mr. Pierpoint transferred to the United States from the United Kingdom, leading a team to spearhead new investments aimed at accelerating R&D productivity.

Speakers

Robert Burgelman, Professor, Management and Director, Stanford Executive Program, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

Mr. Burgelman joined Stanford Business School in 1981and teaches courses in Strategic Management and Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation. Since 1992 he co-teaches a course on Strategy and Action in the Information Processing Industry (together with the chairman of Intel). Before joining Stanford, Mr. Burgelman was on the faculties of Antwerp University-UFSIA (1970-73) and New York University (1978-81). Mr. Burgelman is the author of many articles on the strategy-making process, internal corporate venturing, corporate entrepreneurship, strategic business exit, and technology strategy.

Erich Goetting, Vice President and General Manager, Advanced Products Division, Xilinx

Mr. Goetting is responsible for product R&D, systems and applications engineering, product and technical marketing, and computer and network infrastructure. A key driver of industry-wide partnerships, Mr. Goetting initiated and drove Xilinx relationships with such companies as IBM, Conexant, Agilent, Arithmatica, Apache, MontaVista, WindRiver, and QNX.

Steve Warntjes, R&D Section Manager, Agilent Technologies

Mr. Warntjes has worked in R&D, marketing and product planning for 20 years at Agilent. He has focused on oscilloscopes, logic analysis and processor emulation tools for software and digital hardware designers. He was instrumental in the development of Agilent's first mixed signal oscilloscope and has been recognized with Test Product of the Year three times during his career.