Members of the ESD Alliance are vital to the semiconductor industry, providing comprehensive solutions for the planning, design, and verification of complex SoCs. Their EDA, semiconductor IP, embedded software offerings, services, and solutions for 3D IC design and advanced packaging are found in most chip companies. They, in turn, rely on the ESD Alliance to act on their behalf to address cross-industry issues be they technical, marketing, economic or legislative in nature. Our advocacy programs are broken into five categories: Market Information, Risk Management, Growth and Efficiency, Industry Voice, and Events and Education. Each is designed to serve members’ needs.
Following the growth of the electronic system design ecosystem is the SEMI Electronic Design Market Data (EDMS) (formerly known as Market Statistics Survey or MSS), a resource that is part of the Market Information initiative. The widely used EDMS is published each quarter with data submitted in confidence by public and private EDA, semiconductor IP, and services companies to an independent auditing firm. The data is aggregated and reported in detail by product categories and geographic regions. Every report includes tables with current year-to-date revenue along with the three previous years by quarter, allowing companies to review trends affecting their specific product segments. It also tracks employment figures.
The Risk Management initiative includes the Export Committee that represents all member companies with a unified voice in Washington, D.C., on export licensing and compliance issues and works closely with SEMI’s policy and advocacy office. The License Management and Anti-Piracy Committee reviews third-party licensing management software that many member companies use for issues, updates, and best practices. The committee also assesses technologies and best practices meant to prevent software piracy. Piracy is a problem that impacts both legitimate customers because it artificially lowers the barrier to competition and member companies that invest in developing and supporting products needed by their customers. Anti-piracy measures help honest users operate within their license agreements while deterring the theft or illegal access to the software by illegitimate users.
A great example of this effort is the SEMI Server Certification Protocol being developed jointly by a group of ESD Alliance member companies and managed by the ESD Alliance. It will outline a standard mechanism defining how every installation of a server can be uniquely identified to put in place a substantial barrier against piracy. The program is currently nearing the end of the development phase.
Our Operating System (OS) Interoperability Committee that comes under Growth and Efficiency is a forum for OS vendors to present and update member companies on their plans. The committee publishes a roadmap for recommended platform support for all member companies and sets expectations with users for supported platforms, helping reduce member company resources and costs to support a wider range of platforms.
Regular in-person educational events and networking sessions were an integral part of our Events and Education activities pre-pandemic. They were a resource for members to learn, network, and gain access to leaders and executives from leading companies in our ecosystem. We hope to be able to announce a roster of in-person events soon.
Virtual events are ongoing, though. SEMI’s “Innovation for a Transforming World,” July 13-14 will include a presentation by Wally Rhines, Executive Sponsor of EDMS report and President and CEO of Cornami, on “Trends in the Semiconductor Design Ecosystem.” Wally will use the most recent EDMS report to address recent trends in the market for EDA software and semiconductor IP. His talk will be held Wednesday, July 14, from 9:25-9:50 am PDT.
We are planning the second panel in our two-part series co-hosted by Accellera on the semiconductor design experience of working from home. The first panel, “Remote Work, Remote Chip Design: Building Chips During a Pandemic,” looked at the engineering perspective. The recording is available on the ESD Alliance website. The second panel to be held on August 11 will focus on the return to the office and the strategies and plans that industry executives are developing. Attendees will hear firsthand how various companies are rethinking the workforce post-pandemic.
The Events and Education initiative includes the yearly Phil Kaufman Award for Distinguished Contributions to Electronic System Design that we co-sponsor with the IEEE Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA). It went on hiatus in 2020 because of the pandemic and the 2021 recipient will be announced later this year. A new honor known as the Phil Kaufman Hall of Fame recognizes individuals who made significant contributions to our industry but died before they were acknowledged with the Kaufman Award. The first honorees were announced on June 21, 2012.
I encourage you to learn more about the ESD Alliance and our other programs and initiatives. If your company is already a SEMI member, consider becoming a member of the ESD Alliance. It means submitting a short application with no extra fee. If your company is not a SEMI member yet, it can apply at the same time to join the ESD Alliance. Again, no extra fee is associated with being a part of the ESD Alliance. Contact me at bsmith@semi.org with questions.
