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Re:Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler by ur-whale on Friday June 29, 2018 @06:00PM (#17428176)
I don't believe keeping barrier of entry high in an industry is a good thing for companies in that industry.

Quite the contrary, lowering barriers creates more opportunities and thereby new scope for growth.

It took MSFT 30 years to finally understand that lesson and start offering a free suite of dev tools.

The EDA industry still hasn't groked that lesson.

Re:Darpa invests $100M in a silicon compiler by nickpsecurity on Friday June 29, 2018 @06:20PM (#17428292)
Microsoft knew what they were doing: using secrecy, obfuscated formats/protocols, copyright law, and patent law to block as much competition as possible. They made billions in the process. The EDA vendors do something similar but mostly acquire competitors. There's just three of them covering the basics parts of ASIC design. They aren't competing on driving prices down, either.

So, their strategy is smart until they, like Microsoft, get in a situation where less and less customers need them. I did think one could do a more open version of EDA, though. I was gonna try to talk to someone at smaller player, Mentor, but they got bought. Im keeping my eyes open for new players wanting a differentiator.