EDA Analyst Gary Smith Dead at 74

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Longtime EDA analyst Gary Smith died July 3 in Flagstaff, Arizona at the age of 74. He had been ill with pneumonia. He is survived by his wife, Lori Kate, his son, Casey, and granddaughters Rachel and Shannon.

Gary worked at Dataquest from 1994 to 2006, and later founded Gary Smith EDA. He knew more about the EDA market than anyone I’ve ever known.

I once asked Gary, “How many PCB design seats do you think are in China?” He sent me numbers for all of Asia and broke them down by country. He really loved EDA.

Gary was also a great bass player. He was a member of the Full Disclosure blues band, whose members included Synopsys CEO Aart DeGeus and Sonics CEO Grant Pierce. I was fortunate enough to play with him a few times when he jammed with the Porch Dawgs at the Design Automation Conferences. He will be missed.

A memorial service is set for Sunday, July 12 at 11 am at the DoubleTree San Jose in San Jose, California.

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The original Star Trek series came into my life in 1966 as I was entering sixth grade. I was fascinated by the technology being used, such as communicators and phasers, and the crazy assortment of humans and aliens in each episode. My favorite episode is “The Trouble with Tribbles,” an episode combining cute Tribbles, science, and good/bad guys—sprinkled with sarcastic humor.

04/30/2021 | Ed Acheson, Cadence Design Systems

With the current design transfer formats, rigid-flex designers face a hand-off conundrum. You know the situation: My rigid-flex design is done so now it is time to get this built and into the product. Reviewing the documentation reveals that there are tables to define the different stackup definitions used in the design. The cross-references for the different zones to areas of the design are all there, I think. The last time a zone definition was missed, we caused a costly mistake.

04/29/2021 | Bill Hargin, Z-zero

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