EEWebPULSE_2012_i0041.pdf

EE Web

PULSE

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Issue 41

April 10, 2012

Karen Bartleson

Synopsys

Electrical Engineering Community

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Karen Bartleson

SYNOPSYS

Interview with Karen Bartleson - Senior Director of Community Marketing; President-Elect

of IEEE

An Effective Standard: The Unified

Power Format

BY KAREN BARTLESON

Karen Bartleson walks us through her involvement in developing a technical standard to reduce

power consumption in integrated circuits.

Featured Products

The Right Processor for the

Right Job

BY PAUL CLARKE WITH EBM-PAPST

How to simplify the harrowing process of choosing the right electronics device for your project.

Designing M2M Devices for

First-Time Success

BY DERMOT O’SHEA WITH TAOGLAS

Dermot O’Shea outlines key development processes that will ensure a speedy time-to-market

for your product.

RTZ - Return to Zero Comic

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INTERVIEW

Karen

Bartleson

Synopsys

How did you get into

engineering and when did

you start?

Growing up, I didn’t even know

what engineering was. I loved math

and science, and I liked playing

with dinosaurs and cars instead of

Barbies. I guess I was just kind of

weird.

Karen Bartleson - Senior Director of Community Marketing;

President-Elect of the IEEE Standards Association

When I went to college, I was

studying math and science, and The

Society of Women Engineers (SWE)

reached out to all the girls studying

sciences. They said, “Why don’t

you let us tell you what engineering

is all about.” I was charmed. I

thought, “Wow, this is really cool!

Math, science, I get to make stuff—

this is for me!” I was thrilled, so I

switched my major. My first time

entering the engineering school, I

thought, “Where are all the girls?”

“Oh God, what have I gotten myself

into?” I was one of maybe two girls,

and I was often the only girl in the

class. My grades were better than

almost everyone else’s in the class.

This was mostly because I liked

the subjects and found the material

fascinating, and I also found that the

boys in the Engineering Department

were generally polite, smart young

men who were willing to study and

work with me. It turned out to be an

awesome career.

In 1980, I started my first job. For

engineers at that time, business was

good. I had about half a dozen job

offers to choose from, but I ended

up choosing Texas Instruments (TI)

because they were doing design

automation, which combined

hardware design and software

engineering. My job was writing

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INTERVIEW

software that would automate the

chip design—we called it computer-

aided design (CAD)—that’s how

long ago it was.

competitors and customers were

coming to us for our ASICs simply

because of the reputation of our

CAD system. I was very proud of

that.

to get the company to open up and

create industry standards. That

meant that everyone at Synopsys

hated my guts! Everyone said that I

was going to enable the competition

and put us right out of business.

I just loved it! I was working on

a new logic simulator, which,

instead of modeling the transistor

with just 1s and 0s, modeled

different states such as tri-states,

unknowns and floating. Of course,

some existing engineers who saw

these things thought it was weird,

while others thought it was a great

accomplishment. I actually got to

go to Europe to introduce this new

simulator.

Eventually, though, I got bored.

I wanted to do more, and it was a

small operation that wasn’t quite

ready to put me somewhere else. I

chose Synopsys because

Fortunately for me and the

company, that never happened. We

continued to become a leader and

our interfaces are now used widely

throughout the industry. We’re also

very proactive in the standards

world.

Growing up, I didn’t

even know what

engineering was.

I loved math and

science, and I liked

playing with dinosaurs

and cars instead of

Barbies. I guess I was

just kind of weird.

On a separate note, I was recently

elected to become president of the

IEEE Standards Association. I’m

currently President-Elect, so I’m

learning everything I possibly can

from the current president before I

take over for a two-year term for the

years 2013 and 2014. For me, this is

a really exciting career-enhancing

and life-enriching experience.

The Standards Association is one

of the key standards-developing

organizations in the world, which

produces global standards for

electricity and electronics.

When I was in Italy, a group of TI

engineers took me into a small

conference room and everyone was

smoking like crazy. Then they all

started grilling me, saying things

like, “Your simulator is terrible!

We’ll never be able to use this!”

Eventually they came around once I

demonstrated to them its value.

After a few years at TI, I became a

manager while we were progressing

very well with CAD. I later decided

to move to Colorado to be close to

my mom, and I took a job as CAD

manager at United Technology’s

Microelectronics Center (UTMC).

There, we made radiation-

hardened ASICs designed to go

into outer space and other harsh

environments. My team’s job was to

put together commercial CAD tools

with internally-developed software

and build the design system.

Can you tell us about the

university program that

Synopsys is associated with?

Synopsys has had a university

program since 1984. What we’ve

done since then is turn the program

into something much bigger and

better than simply putting our

software in universities. What a lot

of companies do in their programs

is give universities low-cost or free

tools, which is neat because students

gain practical hands-on experience,

which better prepares them to enter

the industry when they’re done with

school. At Synopsys, we decided to

do something even more valuable.

I admired their technology and

superb engineers. At the time,

Synopsys was viewed as a closed

company in terms of its interfaces.

But it was becoming a leader in

electronic design automation (EDA)

and realized that it needed to open

up its interfaces because customers

were demanding it. I was qualified

to join the company because I knew

how these interfaces worked and I

knew the value of interoperability

from a customer’s perspective.

They hired me to be the Standards

Program Manager, and my job was

After a while at UTMC, we were

getting a lot of business because

of our CAD system. Even though

we manufactured some of the

best ASICs for our market, our

CAD system was better than our

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