Rajeev Madhavan is the chairman and CEO of Magma Design Automation, a company that is into designing integrated circuits (ICs) that are used to create complex, high-performance chips required in cellular telephones, electronic games, Wi-Fi, MP3 players, DVD/digital video, networking, automotive electronics and other electronic applications.

Ever since I began working on VLSI (very-large-scale integration) design, I've been fascinated by the technological advances enabled by integrated circuits (ICs). Since the birth of the IC 50 years ago, we have gone from a single computer taking up the space of an entire building to people all over the world having home computers, cell phones, personal digital assistants, iPhones and iPods.

As thrilled as I have been with these advancements, I have been equally frustrated by the inability of the electronic design automation (EDA) software used to create ICs to support Moore's law. This law is the driving force behind technological advancement and requires the complexity of ICs to double every two years. Traditional IC design flows are too manual, requiring too many engineers and too much specific expertise. As a result, ICs are too costly to develop and electronic systems are not advancing as fast as Moore's law dictates.

That's why I founded Magma.{quotes}12 years ago we pioneered a completely new approach to IC design, an approach that integrates traditionally separate steps in the IC implementation flow, simplifying and accelerating the process.{/quotes} For a while, Magma supported Moore's law better than any other EDA company. But, just when we thought we could rest, along came smaller process nodes and a host of new challenges including new process rules and multi-mode and multi-processing requirements. Once again, supporting Moore's law is the challenge for Magma.

So, we are back at work with a new vision. What I now dream of is a completely integrated concept-to-packaged-silicon flow for both digital and mixed-signal ICs. This flow would deliver the level of automation needed to enable software engineers, as well as hardware engineers, to quickly develop complex electronic systems.

Of course, realising this dream will require Magma to overcome significant technical challenges, and our users to embrace a design methodology shift. But if we succeed, my ultimate dream will come true and all of the best electronic systems will incorporate ICs that were created with Magma software.