The BIGGEST news coming out of the Design Automation Conference this week has been the audit report on Magma Design Automation questioning whether the beleaguered EDA company can survive another 12 months. At least, that's the way the story came out in EE Times.

Now, when I read the story, I knew that what was happening was pretty much pro forma when a company is restructuring debt. You kinda gotta say that unless you do the restructuring it could cause some problems. And when you are a public company, you gotta come out and report it when and independent auditor says it. I'll have to say that coming out with the report on the first day of your industry's biggest trade show probably wasn't the best timing, but you gotta do what you gotta do when you gotta do it.

As luck would have it, I was scheduled to do an podcast interview with Rajeev Madhavan, CEO of Magma, the day after the announcement. And that's what I have for you today. Rajeev not only explained what the details of Magma's financial status, but also went into a detailed explanation of where Magma is going, admitted they have done a crumby job of explaining their value proposition to customers, and that their technology and business houses were out of order. Then he went off on the rest of the industry, its brain-dead approach to marketing, potentially fatal business practices, the financial health of the industry as a whole, the future of the semiconductor industry ...

It was an exhausting 18 minutes. And well worth listening to.

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