Working with the wrong partner may have a bigger effect than you think
1 min read
We've always been led to believe that the result of any endeavour is the sum of the parts. It's a view of the world which is categorised under the heading 'emergence'. Although the concept dates back to the times of the Greek philosophers, it's only within the last Century or so that the term 'emergence' has been associated with the line of thought. According to emergence, any resultant is the sum of its constituents, or the difference if the constituents work in opposing directions. The concept should be familiar to anyone who has worked with vectors at some time.
But is it true today – for the electronics world, at least – that the result is the sum of the parts, or are there different forces at work? As electronic design becomes more complex, is it possible that the result is not the sum of the contributions, but a product of them? That's a view outlined by Aart de Geus, chairman and ceo of eda developer Synopsys, at the NMI's recent Future World Symposium.
While they still have to deal with the complexities of ever smaller process technologies – scaling complexity – engineers now have to embrace the wider problem of integration – systemic complexity. In de Geus' view,
systemic complexity is of such scale that companies designing leading edge devices need to collaborate in order to complete the project in a timely fashion. Some of that collaboration is reflected in the need to source IP blocks as a way of avoiding the 'reinvention of the wheel'. But there are also other factors at play, including the basic question of whether you can verify that your design actually does what you expect it to.
The solutions to almost all of these issues involve third parties – and that's why de Geus uses the term 'product', rather than 'sum'. Working with the wrong third party will have a big impact on the project's technical and economic success.
