Frontier Exclusive Visionary Interview for hardware, software, system related business and and academia
Frontier Journal (FJ): Frontier Journal is now interviewing with Rajeev Madhavan of Magma Design Automation. So, my first question for Rajeev is, Magma has been in business for a couple of years, and Magma has a glorious past and doing extremely well right now. What is Magma's big plan as of today?
Rajeev Madhavan (RM): As of today, we have moved from -- we started out our business as a physical technology company. So, we are suddenly making a rapid transition, and this includes except for logic simulations and test bench, pretty much everything we have all across the board.
So, it's a massive change from the company, in that we now are offering a full-blown solution in a much more automated fashion. Our core business, which is the RTL-to-GDSII, is growing very, very dramatically every other year.
Every other year, two years combined, we are growing 8-10% and taking market share of 10% every two years, so at about 5% a year we are growing. So, as we grow the main implementation portion, we are also adding all of the other tools and making a complete portfolio of tools.
The uniqueness of what Magma is doing is, we are a company who buys technologies. We don't buy startups, and which are done tools and are already in production. We buy technologies, and kind of are not shy in taking on a new piece of technology and making it happen. So, they are unique for us this year.
FJ: Okay. So, in terms of Magma has a flow, it's called the fastest path from RTL-to-GDSII. That was a -- in the beginning of Magma, you have such kind of vision and combining logical things with physical things, has this vision been changed or is still kept the same?
RM: Now the vision is fastest path from concept to silicon, not just RTL to silicon. So, there are two changes. One is the -- the slogan has changed a little bit in terms of making it concept to silicon. People will understand what that means from Magma over a period of time.
Second thing is, we are quantifying the fastest. We can do today any chip in under two days. Any chip. I'm not kidding. I mean we can do it in two days. I mean it's sort of -- that flow is being deployed, and that's with a product called Talus. A new product that Magma has come out with is intended at doing that. So, not only is it a slogan, we can quantify the slogan a lot better now.
FJ: So, the Talus product family is totally different to past product families?
RM: Absolutely. It's a bottom-up newly grown tools to address the fastest even bigger. I mean early on we achieved some progress, because we combined physical synthesis and logic synthesis quite a bit. Physical design and logic design quite a bit. But now we have an opportunity of changing that game completely, being able to use multiple CPUs, run any chip in two days.
FJ: So, in terms of core technology deployed in those two product families, they are fundamentally different?
RM: Very different mechanism, very different algorithms, very different delay models, very different systems to achieve the whole flow.
FJ: Okay. So, in terms of what's your vision or your opinion about today's EDA market recovery from probably the five or three years ago?
RM: Yeah, I think EDA is certainly on a little bit of an uptake, there is no doubt, but more importantly, I think the uptake has been in fact helping the companies like Magma which have been innovative in technology. So, we as an industry have to focus on the customer success. That's sort of the only thing that matters at the end of the game.
FJ: Okay, so in terms of people pretty much interested in the law suits between Magma and Synopsys. So, may I know is there any progress about this, and will that impact your prospects or customer's adoption or Magma tools?
RM: Two things. Customers do not care about the legal, because they understand very clearly, this is a tactic to try to use fear on certain issues and try to see if you can stall Magma. I mean they can't compete with us in products today. Their products are fairly inferior in terms of their capability of matching us, so they are essentially trying to fight us in court and trying to slow us down.
But customers don't care about it, because A, this is a panel litigation. This is not like the other litigations that EDA industries have seen. Two, the litigation has gone very well for Magma, because what we are trying to prove now is, even if Synopsis had any ownership, IBM would have an ownership, in which case the case is gone. So, we are sitting on the cusp of having some verdicts in that area, but overall things have gone very well for us in the litigation side of things.
FJ: So, you are basically a legend in the EDA industry. You worked for LogicVision which went to public. Another company you started was Ambit, which was also acquired by Cadence. Right now Magma is one of the top four EDA companies. So, in terms of personal experience, what's your advice or opinion for young entrepreneurs to startup as their own business or lead a new business?
RM: I think EDA is -- there are startups in EDA and startups in other areas. Startup in other areas is a little bit easier, because general market availability is bigger, so it sometimes a lot easier. But EDA has its own advantages to startup business, because Moore's Law means every 18 months we go through changes.
If we can ride one of the waves of changes, it's a phenomenal opportunity. But one thing is clear for any entrepreneur, starting a startup on this floor. EDA has become one of providing solutions -- people want to actually do their chip, and not worry about putting tools together.
So, it's important for anybody coming in as an entrepreneur to make themselves not an island, but fit themselves within the platforms and within the floors that are coming in. That was not as important when you were doing a startup in the early days when companies could afford big cat grooves and could put things together.
Today they cannot afford it. Even if you can afford it, you will never get the optimal results by doing that, so it's important to actually provide an integrated solution of -- align yourself with integrated solutions before you can become an entrepreneur.
FJ: So, that comes up a follow up question. In terms of people, technology and timing, so Magma went on terms of deep sub-micro challenge with good timing. You have four people as co-founders. Also core technology, so which one is the most important or you think they are equally important? Technology, timing and people or would you say it's a team?
RM: People obviously is very, very important. There is no doubt on that. It's important. But people at different stages of the company are different, because what happens is, once the product matures into a different level, you need different sales people for example. I'm just using sales as an example, right?
People have to go through changes as the company is maturing and growing from one stage to the other. So, we are now becoming what I would consider between a startup and a big company, sort of somewhere in the middle ground . So, we need sales people who can actually go and sell new tools, but at the same time there are people who have to sell the franchise tools.
So, it's sort of a really big transition that you got to make. So, people are important, but more importantly the ability of the company to change the people is important. Technology is very, very important in a place like this. One thing which is much more important is a single focus on customer success. If you don't have that, all the three things that we talked about won't work.
FJ: Customer is a...
RM: Customer is -- and their success is the most important thing in EDA. If you have that focus, then it becomes an execution challenge. It's not about anything else.
FJ: So, my last question is, would it be possible, Magma right now is doing quite successful. Personally you are going to someday, I'm just guessing, are you going to start a new startup or are you going to just keep going with Magma?
RM: So, I used to say I have three more startups I'll do in my life. Now I'm saying I'll do two startups, but if I do something and it's not planned soon or anytime in the near future. I tend to think I got two more startups and it won't be in EDA.
FJ: Yeah. That concludes Frontier Visionary Interview with RM at Magma. Thank you.
RM: Thank you.
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