INNOVATION SPOTLIGHTS A Great Place to Do Great Work
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Our Culture
page. 4-5
2. The Next Generation
page. 6-7
3. Innovation Starts Here
page. 8-9
4. Seeing into the Future
5. Customer Success
6. Giving Back
7. One Team
page. 10-11 page. 12-13 page. 14-15 page. 16-17
OUR CULTURE A Great Place to Do Great Work: Lip-Bu Tan INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
Lip-Bu Tan was born in Malaysia and came to the United States with a one-way plane ticket and one semester’s worth of tuition for graduate school at MIT. He obtained his degree in nuclear engineering, and soon launched into a business opportunity that led to his founding Taiwan’s first venture capital company. Lip-Bu’s humility and belief in the importance of continuous learning permeates the way he approaches business. After much success with his venture capital firm, LipBu was invited to join the Cadence board. In a time of crisis for the company, he stepped up to accept the role of CEO and led the company back to success. When Lip-Bu joined Cadence as CEO in 2009, strengthening our culture was one of his top priorities. He embedded teamwork, innovation, and agility as core to our culture and knew they would be keys to our success. He focused on increasing trust with employees and customers, and he made open communication and crisp decision-making central to our ability to move quickly as one team. Lip-Bu believes that Cadence’s success and ability to stay at the forefront of innovation starts with our culture and our people. He says, “If you want to shift direction, you have to change it from the heart.”
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ItIt is is the the passion, passion, intelligence, and intelligence, and integrity integrity of our dedicated employees of our dedicated employees that that drive drive our our success success and and make Cadence a great place make Cadence a great place to to do do great great work. work. Lip-Bu Tan, CEO and President Lip-Bu
Caring about each other, listening to each other, and trusting each other are at the core of our culture. Lip-Bu has helped Cadence grow to become the innovative, agile, and collaborative team that we are today. Our motto is “One Cadence—One Team.” Under Lip-Bu’s leadership, Cadence has achieved six straight years of increasing revenue and over 500% increase in the stock price. Our customers are rooting for us, and employees feel immense pride in our continued momentum and success.
As Lip-Bu knows, our culture and our people are the keys to our success. We strive to build a great workplace where employees are excited to come to work every day, enjoy the people they work with, and feel that they have a positive impact on customer and company success.
At Cadence, innovation starts with our people and we work hard to attract, select, and nurture employees who will propel Cadence forward in an industry that is continually growing and changing. In the last two years we have welcomed over 1,500 new employees to the Cadence team. Under Lip-Bu’s leadership, more than 10% of these are new college graduates bringing the latest technical expertise and ideas with them. An additional 30% of new hires come to us through employee referrals. And they overwhelmingly choose to stay: 40% of current employees have been with Cadence for more than ten years, and we have an annual turnover rate of only 5% in the United States.
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THE NEXT GENERATION Cadence Academic Network: Patrick Haspel INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
Innovation starts with our people—and today’s students are the next generation of technology innovators. Dr. Patrick Haspel, senior principal program manager, currently runs one of Cadence’s most interesting and innovative programs, the Cadence® Academic Network. Through the Cadence Academic Network, we provide future engineers with access to our cuttingedge software as we collaborate with instructors to develop a curriculum that applies design theories to real-world engineering challenges. Cadence donates software worth over a million dollars each year to students at close to 1,000 universities around the world. Cadence is committed to creating a sustainable pool of EDA engineering talent by preparing students with the tools and training they need to thrive in the competitive semiconductor and electronics industry. Students who use Cadence technology during their time at universities get first-hand experience with our EDA tools and often look to join Cadence after graduation or encourage their future employers to become Cadence customers. Last year, 12% of our new hires were recent college graduates and we had another 100+ interns around the world. Our robust community of interns and
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University students around the world are using Cadence technology to learn and develop their talents. The future of EDA is bright… and very friendly! Patrick Haspel, Senior Principal Program Manager
recent graduates encourages our university talent to grow their skills and make a difference at Cadence. Every year, we hold an annual Intern Showcase event where interns share their projects with Cadence Fellows, Distinguished Engineers, executives, and employees. We celebrate their contributions with fun parties and mixers, as well as expose them to the One Cadence—One Team culture. Fotios Ntampitzias, a recent college graduate on our DSG team, was asked to describe his experience at Cadence. He said, “There is no typical day at Cadence, mainly because every day there is a different challenge! Each design is different, each customer is different, which creates a very diverse workload. Plus, I can really feel proud of my achievements every day I go back home, as I know that I am actively helping people lead better lives thanks to our work.”
Cadence and university professors that has expanded worldwide under Patrick’s leadership. The culture at Cadence has enabled Patrick to take his dream and turn it into a reality. Employees at all levels and in all areas of the company are encouraged to innovate, take initiative, collaborate, and make a difference. Thanks to Patrick, the Cadence Academic Network has become a huge and global success, helping students around the world expand their skills and prepare to drive the future of innovation.
Pedro Coke, an intern at Cadence prior to being hired full-time at our Munich location, was first exposed to Cadence EDA tools at the University of Porto in Portugal, where he was a student. Now, after one year at Cadence, he says, “I’m still learning something new every day.” Patrick’s idea for the Cadence Academic Network came while he was a PhD student and noticed that the technical industry was not capitalizing on the opportunity to work with top universities. This was the start of a unique relationship between
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INNOVATION STARTS HERE Driving The Future of Innovation: Jacques-Olivier Piednoir and Arnold Ginetti INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
Cadence’s flagship Virtuoso® technology will be celebrating its 25th anniversary next year, having helped customers design analog and full-custom products through a revolution in electronic innovation. The Virtuoso suite includes three distinct products: the front end to create schematic, the back end to create layout, and an analog design environment to drive the electrical simulation and verification. These products are used to create the electronic foundation for virtually anything— smartphone communication, wearable devices with sensors to capture your speed and direction, the brake pedal on your car, audio amplifiers for your home sound system, and much more. Despite the predictions of some who see digital functions as electronics’ finest achievement, analog circuitry continues to be essential to modern electronics. The way we experience the real world means that analog will always be needed as a mediator between ourselves and the digital realm. But the role of analog is changing in dramatic ways. Today’s analog circuits bear little resemblance to those of 20 years ago. With the advancement of highly featured smartphones, audio capabilities can be a key differentiator for a product. Microphones and
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In every piece of electronics there is an analog component. The Virtuoso suite is the leading analog design design product product in in the the world. world Arnold Ginetti, Fellow
advanced audio systems rely on high-performing analog technology and lower power consumption to improve audio processing such as echo cancellation, noise cancellation, wind filtering, 3D sound, and other effects. Similarly, in-vehicle electronics are the cornerstone differentiator for many automobile companies, including infotainment systems, smartphone integration, rear-seat LCDs, and all-around cameras. This onboard embedded technology relies on analog components for clocks, data transmission, jitter improvement, and more. “The technology in your pocket, in your car, in your home,” says Jacques-Olivier Piednoir, vice-president, R&D, “all uses analog technology.”
the people that keep them excited about coming to work. The teamwork, commitment to each other, and dedication to our customers is inspiring. Innovation starts with our people. Thank you Jacques-Olivier and Arnold, and happy 18th anniversary with Cadence!
In a highly competitive market, Cadence maintains industry leadership in the market segment in analog design. Although they try to catch up to us, “thanks to the innovation and dedication of our teams, they have never succeeded so far ,” says Jacques-Olivier. R&D teams in France, Scotland, China, Taiwan, India, and the US continue to evolve the Virtuoso suite to meet the changing needs of the market and stay a step ahead of our competition. Arnold Ginetti, Cadence fellow, says, “It’s a very exciting and challenging life. We get to code and innovate every day.” Arnold and Jacques-Olivier are both celebrating 18 years at Cadence. In addition to the innovation, it’s 9
SEEING INTO THE FUTURE INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
The Future of Recognition Technology: Samer Hijazi, Chris Rowen, Brian Valentine, and Sandip Parikh Like many technological innovations once only imaginable in the realm of fantasy, self-driving cars are now an accepted reality. To be truly self-driving, cars must be able to analyze and recognize the driving environment—they have to be able to see the world around them and react instantaneously. Samer Hijazi, design engineering director, Brian Valentine, senior principal design engineer, and Sandip Parikh, senior software architect are all working on one of Cadence’s latest innovations: various technologies with applications for the future of automotive. Samer works with convolutional neural networks (CNN), a way to create artificial intelligence by “learning” from data. We live in a world full of data, but many customers face the challenge of how to create value from it. “There is a Niagara Falls of data that we want to do something smart with,” says Chris Rowen, engineering fellow, and Cadence® CNN technology provides a new way to do this. Machine learning through CNN is a new philosophy for developing applications. It is a systematic approach with a new algorithm for creating artificial intelligence, including artificial “sight.” CNNs are very
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Cadence has a ‘can do’ culture; I feel encouraged to take on very challenging problems and exceed what others have done. Sandip Parikh, Senior Software Architect
powerful recognizers. By providing a database of content on any subject, the CNN learns to recognize the content in the real-world environment. For instance: traffic sign detection that can enable a car to drive itself. Technologies worked on by Brian and Sandip also have exciting applications for automotive such as people and face detection; very useful in self-driving cars so that they can stop in time to avoid hitting a pedestrian.
to innovate and tackle new challenges every day. Cadence empowers the team to come up with their own solutions to problems. “Take risks, be disruptive, and learn from mistakes,” is CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s philosophy. At Cadence, innovation truly begins with our people. 1
Source: GTSRB Database. http://benchmark.ini.rub.de/?section=gtsrb &subsection=news
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WardsAuto. http://wardsauto.com/ar/world_vehicle_population_110815
With an error rate of 0.4%, Cadence’s traffic sign recognition technology surpasses all previously published results1 and is 3 times more accurate than the average human. Tens of millions of new cars get on the road each year2—imagine if they all had builtin traffic sign recognition and other artificial sight (such as pedestrian detection). This is the direction that the automobile industry is moving, with help from Cadence innovations in CNN and ISP/Vision software. This is just one of a very large class of problems that this technology can help with. We have seen the emergence of vision recognition as a key capability in products as various as cell phones, cameras, home appliances, TVs, and security. Imagine a surveillance system able to identify abandoned packages within seconds and automatically initiate an appropriate security procedure. For Samer, Chris, Brian, and Sandip, what keeps them excited about working at Cadence is the possibility 11
CUSTOMER SUCCESS This is OUR Time! Donna Black INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
We are at an inflection point as a company, and we believe that this is OUR time. We are at the leading edge of a new era of technology, and there is a huge opportunity in front of us. At Cadence, customer success is one of our core values and “Win with the Winners” is one of our strategic imperatives. We not only need to win with our large customers, but we want to be the trusted advisor to the best-in-class leaders in every electronic industry. Our customer experience must be world class in order to gain their trust. Donna Black, program management director, has launched an initiative to “up our game in customer experience.” She is helping teams in our IP group make significant strides to differentiate Cadence based on our culture of One Cadence—One Team! We have had some big wins this year. Teams in IP and across the company have come together to make strides in our technology, quality, support, product development, and internal efficiency in order to maximize the ability to deliver amazing results to our customers. Cadence was named the top-ranked and fastest growing IP supplier1, and has risen to #2 in the overall IP market and #1 in certain segments. Our IP technology is now responsible for over 13% of Cadence revenue.
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We differentiate ourselves from the competition with our people and their One Team approach to maximize customer success. Donna Black, Program Management Director
S CEO Lip-Bu Tan sees employee enthusiasm for innovation and solving customer problems as key to driving our growth and success. We are teaming with companies that are at the forefront of their industry, logos that are world-renowned and synonymous with leadership and innovation. This year, our customers shipped over two billion units containing Cadence® IP!
excited to celebrate the results of our hard work, teamwork, and dedication. And our customers can feel the difference! Innovation starts with our people—our customers are excited to work with us and they want us to win. This is OUR time! 1
Source: Gartner global 3rd party IP market share surveys, 2014 & 2015
“The efficiency and productivity we gain from using Cadence IP solutions in our chip design, together with the world-class support we get during critical phases of our projects, make all the difference,” says Eran Eshed, co-founder and VP of marketing, Altair. We are enabling customer success by infusing our One Team culture into all customer interactions. The highest performing team achieved 152% of their target, and all teams achieved at least 100% of plan over the last 3 years. According to Neil Zaman, corporate vice president of North America Field Operations, “understanding the priorities of our customers and pushing ourselves to exceed those expectations is the catalyst for creating a long-term trusted partnership and an exemplary customer experience.” Cadence teams go above and beyond for our customers, for Cadence, and for each other. We’re 13
GIVING BACK INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
Girl Power: Michaela Guiney Michaela Guiney, software engineering director, joined Cadence in 2003. While technology is her first love, Michaela has developed another passion: inspiring the next generation of female software engineers through her work with Girls Who Code. Girls Who Code is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to expose girls to computer engineering and close the gender gap in the technology business sector. Michaela started working with the organization in January of 2015 when she gained approval from one of the local high schools to hold the club there. The club meets once a week after school for two hours and includes girls from other high schools as well. Michaela teaches a total of 18 girls at the club about coding, and serves as a role model for pursuing a technical career. “The target is girls who might not think of STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] as something they can do or want to do. I want to show girls that coding is a cool thing to do,� says Michaela. She was inspired to work with Girls Who Code as a result of her own experiences in college. When she
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I want to show girls that coding is a cool thing to do. Michaela Guiney, Software Engineering Director
took her first computer science course, she found that while many of the male students had experience with coding, most of the women did not. Michaela was one of only six women who did not drop the course. Through Girls Who Code, Michaela helps girls follow their passion for STEM, and feel confident that they can pursue this passion in high school and beyond. Michaela says the best reward is seeing their creativity and excitement as they discover something new about coding and about themselves. Michaela describes the Cadence culture as caring, supporting, and a place where everyone pitches in. Giving back to the community is encouraged, and her manager supports a flexible schedule to make sure she can make time for the weekly club meetings. In addition to Girls Who Code, Michaela used her five days of paid volunteer time off offered by Cadence to bike through Oregon with the Boy Scouts. Her team was rooting for her the whole way.
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ONE TEAM The Future of USB: Jacek Duda INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
USB flash drives: everyone has 1 or 2… or 10… stuffed in a drawer somewhere. That’s because USB is the most popular interface in the world, with millions of devices shipped every day containing USB capability. It features a standardized port designed to accommodate many different types of hardware devices such as digital cameras, printers, scanners, flash drives, cell phones, and iPods, to name a few. That’s USB as we know it today. The future of USB looks different. This year, Cadence has developed IP for a new type of connector, USB Type-C™, to replace the existing connectors that we use today (Type-A and Type-B). USB Type-C is very small, reversible, and flippable. You’ll never stick your flash drive into the computer the wrong way again! Additionally, Cadence® IP can control delivery of 100W of power to run through the cable, enough to charge a laptop or even a display monitor. Even more impressive, with the support of USB Alternate Modes (DisplayPort specification) in the Cadence IP subsystem, a USB Type-C connector can also support HD video output. So now instead of needing a charger, a USB connector, and a display cable, these functions will all exist in one connector that uses the same port and is built on the same chip. Our children won’t even know that cables other than USB ever existed; in the
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It’s a complete breakthrough. This connector brings the biggest disruption point in the history of USB. Jacek Duda, Product Marketing Manager
future, almost every cord that we use now will be consolidated into the USB connector. Shrinivasan Jaganathan, architect, and Sathish Kumar Ganesan, design lead, won the prestigious Cadence Product Innovation Award of 2015 for creating the industry’s first unified multi-protocol PHY. This is a huge technology breakthrough and one of the critical elements of Cadence’s IP subsystem for USB Type-C, providing USB Alternate Mode support. Cadence IP enables customers to use this new USB technology in their devices. Our innovations help them achieve faster time to market, consume less power, and gain precious space efficiency. “Customers are excited. They love it. It’s resonating really well,” says Jacek Duda, product marketing manager for Cadence IP for USB. In the One Cadence—One Team spirit, teams in Poland, the US, and India worked together to move quickly, beat our competitors, and deliver an accelerated time to market for our customers. “It’s a collective effort,” says Jacek, “This product proves how well the teams can work with each other. The fact that we were able to align and move quickly shows just how much the teams and individuals are committed to Cadence.” The first devices with the new Cadence IP subsystem for USB Type-C technology are currently being built and will go to market next year. 17
INNOVATION Starts Here
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