The coming year will be pivotal for the chip design community and the EDA industry. The hype surrounding intellectual property will finally die down, reflecting the realities of the business. This is not the gold rush many had hoped to see. The Virtual Socket Interface Alliance will attempt to demonstrate that it's not just a big, feel-good consortium.
Consortiums typically have no more than three years to show that they're delivering the goods.
Look for the various library standards endorsed by Silicon Integration Initiative's ASIC Industry Council to start finding acceptance. Once ASIC vendors adopt the Delay Calculation Language, Advanced Library Format and Open Library API, new EDA companies that need ASIC vendor libraries will more easily compete. Both the civil and criminal cases are likely to be resolved in the lower court this year, but appeals will surely drag the fight into 2000. The latest EDA industry combatants, Mentor Graphics and Quickturn, will continue slugging it out, but Quickturn will likely be doing it from behind the Cadence phalanx. Recall that Quickturn reacted to Mentor's hostile takeover bid by turning to white knight Cadence.