It's been a year of loss in analog ...
Analog's Anno Horribilis
by Peggy Aycinena
Over this past few months, three significant contributors to analog design have passed away: Jim Williams in June, Bob Pease, also in June, and Ashawna Hailey here in October.
And it's not like they were old. Hailey was only 62, Williams was only 63, and Pease was only 70. In this day and age, even 70's not old.
I felt the death of these three people rather keenly, because I had had a chance to meet two out of the three of them just this past year.
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Bob Pease ...
Last December, I began a 5-month gig writing a 3x-weekly blog for an EDN/UBM microsite called "SOC Superheros". The blog was supposed to be about mixed-signal design, and during my tenure was sponsored by Magma. One of my first postings was about Bob Pease.
You can read it here, and admire the artwork, which I did myself as a total homage to Bob's own iconic hand-drawn illustrations.
Several months later, I saw EDN's Paul Rako doing a product tear-down at DesignCon in Santa Clara. I told him afterwards about my blog about Bob Pease, and to my great delight he sent the link on to Pease.
In return, I got the most cheerful of responses.
I told Paul Rako, Thanks for the heads-up. I've not met you, but thanks for the kind words.
Yeah, basically, you got it right, that being a DIFFERENT kind of lecturer does help me get my point across.
My ideas are generally not "mainstream", and certainly not any conventional digital garbage. The whole idea of making a half-hour technical presentation WITH 6 or 8 (Digital) PowerPoint slides, is disgusting! I usually use 60 or 80.
I sent this comment to sit at the end of your Blog.
Hi, Friends, I like to use my "Analog PowerPoint" for presentations, to KEEP FROM BORING attendees past sleep and TEARS, as Microsoft PowerPoint users often do. I keep mixing up my visuals and my techniques to keep the viewers THINKING.
Everything BAD you hear about horrid "PowerPoint presentations" is – what I try to NOT DO!
"First I'll tell you what I'm going to tell you, then I'll tell you; and then I'll tell you what I told you".
BLEAH!!!!!!
Beast regrds. / rap / Robert A. Pease
From that point on, I was on Pease's mailing list and received regular updates with his ongoing commentary on life, and analog design in particular. The last email I received from him was sent on Saturday, June 18th, at 5:05 am.
Bob Pease died later that day in a car accident as he was leaving the memorial for his friend and colleague, Jim Williams. I was truly grieved when I heard the news.
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Ashawna Hailey ...
I met Ashawna Hailey in February when she was in the audience at a Computer History Museum celebration of the 40th anniversary of SPICE.
Why she was not up on stage with her brother, Kim Hailey – given that Dylan McGrath described Ashawna in EE Times this week as "the creator of [the] circuit simulation program HSpice" – is anybody's guess, but you're kidding yourself if you think Silicon Valley's comfortable with transgender people.
Ashawna Hailey, the woman, used to be Shawn Hailey, the man. She used to be one of the "Hailey Brothers" who together developed and marketed HSpice, eventually selling it to Avanti, ergo Synopsys.
Even as I'm typing this, I'm listening to the archived taping of the CHM event and hearing U.C. Berkeley's Dave Hodges describe Kim Hailey as the person who "developed one of the first commercial versions of SPICE, drawing heavily on the original work and adding a lot of value with enhancements and service."
Clearly, if you only had the Hodges intro to go by, you'd think Kim Hailey was a solo act, but I know that's not the case.
In July 2006, I was at a Synopsys-sponsored breakfast at DAC in San Francisco celebrating the 25th anniversary of HSpice, which the company owned by that time. The breakfast panel included the Hailey's and the always dynamic Richard Newton, who was then Dean of Engineering at U.C. Berkeley. [He passed away less than 6 months after that event.]
Raul Camposano was moderator, and when he stepped up to the podium to begin the discussion, even those of us sitting in the back of the ballroom could see his discomfort.
Turning to his left to introduce his panelists, he saw Richard Newton, he saw Kim Hailey, and then he saw someone he did not recognize. He had not been told that Shawna was transitioning at that time to Ashawna, and Camposano was visibly – albeit, only momentarily – flummoxed trying to figure out what was going on. Shame on those who did not let him know in advance.
Nonetheless, Ashawna was on that Synopsys panel in 2006 because she was "the creator" of HSpice, and deserved to be there.
Fast forwarding to 2011, now the shame is on the folks at the Computer History Museum for: a) not having had Ashawna on their SPICE anniversary panel, and/or b) at least publicly acknowledging her contributions.
Anyway, at the end of the hour-long SPICE event in February, I went over to Ashawna Hailey, who along with hundreds of other people was milling around and chatting. I introduced myself and asked her directly why she had not been up on stage.
She basically said: Well, both Kim and I made contributions, so it was enough that Kim was up there.
Really? I mean, really???
Come on, Silicon Valley, surely we can do better than that in this day and age. To quote the great Bob Pease ...
Bleah.
October 25, 2011
Peggy Aycinena owns and operates EDA Confidential:
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peggy@aycinena.com
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