Thoughts on Creative Collaboration - HLF Giant...

Thoughts on

Creative Collaboration

Rick Bahr

Executive Director, Stanford SystemX Alliance

Sep 26, 2016

H I G H L E V E L F O R U M

G R E N O B L E I N N O VAT I O N F O R A D VAN C E D N E W T E C H N O L O G I E S

Disclaimers

WHILE PRESENTLY AT STANFORD, MY REAL BACKGROUND IS IN THE COMPUTING

AND WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS/SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRIES, WITH JUST A

FOOT IN ACADEMIA.

MY TENURE IN THOSE INDUSTRIES OVERLAPPED A TIME OF PERHAPS

REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENTS, BUT ONES INTRODUCED INTO

VERY EVOLUTIONARY MARKETS.

MY EXPERIENCES ARE CONFINED TO ROUTE 128/BOSTON AND THE SILICON

VALLEY/CA BAY AREA.

THIS IS A QUALITATIVE, OBSERVATIONAL TALK … NOT A RESEARCH REPORT

MY HOPE IS TO COMMUNICATE ABOUT SOME OF THE MOST REMARKABLE

COLLABORATIVE TEAM EXPERIENCES I HAVE HAD THE PRIVILEGE TO BE A PART

OF, AND PERHAPS SOME OF THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED.

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Ingredients of Creative Collaboration: MACRO Picture

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CREATIVE INDIVIDUALS

SUPPORTIVE SETTING

COMMON PURPOSE

Creative Individuals, Some Markers

UNIVERSITY PRESENCE: THE TRIGGER

Silicon Valley (Stanford, Berkeley, …)

Boston/Route 128 (MIT, Harvard, …)

CRITICAL MASS OF KNOWLEDGE, WITH EMPLOYMENT MOBILITY

EXAMPLE: Computing/US: Phila/New York to Boston to Silicon Valley

EXAMPLE: Semiconductors: New York to Texas to California … Taiwan++

EXAMPLE: Social Media: Facebook, Google, Twitter, ... many Bay Area (for now)

DIVERSITY IN WORKFORCE

Educational and cultural backgrounds

Diversity in disciplinary backgrounds

SELF RELIANT SPIRIT

Adventurous spark (for learning or finding fortune)

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Silicon Valley Journey: Evolution in the “Technology Tribes”

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Adventurous Spark Diversity Critical masses of talents

University Presence

Supportive Setting, Some Markers

CULTURAL VALUE ALIGNMENT WITH INNOVATION

Encouragement of personal risk-taking

Personal integrity & meritocracy for ideas

Discouragement of excuses/safety-nets/circumstantial victim (true self reliance)

SUPPORTIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

Venture capital availability for startup based diversification

Corporate sheltering for established business diversification

Regional ecosystem of enablement (e.g., contract manufacturing)

RICHNESS IN IDEA FLOW

Openness to harvesting university insight

Journals, conferences, seminars … job mobility

PRESSURE TO SUCCEED OR FAIL

Motivation can be desperation, or inspiration

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“Regional Advantage” (AnnaLee Saxenian)

SILICON VALLEY SUCCESS

Read her book (albeit dated now)

Environment: universities, investment, risk taking culture, …

BUT especially: horizontal companies with focused innovation

Collaboration even in the Corporate Ecosystem

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Rick’s Employers

The Successful Culture of Silicon Valley1

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1take-action.com

Common Purpose, Some Markers

A REAL BUSINESS NEED

An easy, cross-cultural goal is revenue goaling (not my favorite)

Startup has blinding focus on a first product, sink/swim together

Business’ “mid-life” crisis

NOT a “Build it and they will come” philosophy

NOT a “Second System Syndrome”

ALWAYS PUSH AND PULL

Technological opportunity (Push)

Application intersection (Pull)

TEAM REWARD MODEL

Individual recognition quietly meaningful, and meritocratic

Public recognition emphasizing joint accomplishment

COURAGEOUS LEADERSHIP/PROTECTION

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Three Case Studies

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Computer Development Landscape

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Time

Co

st

Supercomputer

Mainframe

Minicomputer

PC

Smartphone

Workstation

Smart Environment

Vertically Integrated Companies,

Heroic deployment

Integrated Technology

Opportunists

(Rick’s home)

Systems

Integrators


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Time

Co

st

Supercomputer

Mainframe

Minicomputer

PC

Smartphone

Workstation

Smart Environment


Opportunists

Apollo DN10000 Workstation … The Project

DEVELOPMENT TIMEFRAME

1985 – 1988 (3¼ years)

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

RISC computing in a W/S, new ISA (PRISM) ala MIPS, SPARC, CLIPPER, i860

1st, 3 wide parallel instructions w floating point computational emphasis in a W/S

1st, Multiprocessing in a W/S

Toshiba 1.25u foundry, ICS/Vertex designed 8K-30K gate arrays in a W/S

Enabled by a new breed of design tools (Synopsys, Mentor, AIDA, etc)

Enabled by operating system and application portability

BUSINESS ASPIRATIONS

Workstations were challenging the notion of mainframes, mini’s

MCAD modeling, ECAD simulation needed an answer

MULTIDISCIPLINARY TEAM COMPOSITION

30-50 in digital design, product design, compilers, o/s

UNIVERSITY INSPIRATION

MIPS at Stanford

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SUPPORTIVE SETTING

COMMON PURPOSE

Apollo DN10000 Workstation … The Collaboration

MIPS inspiration DEC, Prime, Wang, DG people eco-system Multi-disciplinary team formed Critical mass in critical areas

Founder/executive sheltering Emerging fabless model Emerging gate array design model Emerging tools from AIDA, Synopsys, Mentor Physical core team isolation

Startup excitement lingering Competition/threat from SUN, IBM, HP Learning so much together Apollo needed more vertical solutions


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Time

Co

st

Supercomputer

Mainframe

Minicomputer

PC

Smartphone

Workstation

Smart Environment


Opportunists

SGI Origin 2000 Scalable Supercomputer… The Project


1994 – 1996 (2¼ years)


Standard RISC microprocessor (MIPS/10K) system for “Supercomputer Apps”

1st, ccNUMA scalable shared memory system to reach 100’s (512) of CPUs

IBM .5u CMOS foundry, w IBM pioneered sea of gates, testability, packaging

SuperHIPPI clustering technology

Enabled by scientific apps natural parallelism & portability (e.g., MPI)


Workstation capability was challenging the notion of supercomputers

ASCI Blue Mountain, NRO’s EIS, NCAR, NOAH, … opened eyes

Needed more of a portfolio in gross margins (microprocessor slide starting)


50-100 in digital design, product design, parallelizing compilers, o/s


DASH at Stanford

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SUPPORTIVE SETTING

COMMON PURPOSE

Origin 2000 Scalable Supercomputer… The Collaboration

DASH inspiration Silicon Valley eco-system Multi-disciplinary team formed Critical mass in critical areas

Executive sheltering Consensus on attack from below IBM pioneered mainframe technology Organizational core team isolation

New applications complement the graphics Chance to redefine supercomputing Natural evolution from bus based systems Building on a computing business trajectory

DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION

Atheros implements 5 GHz RF circuits using low-cost digital

CMOS!

Regulatory 1997 opening of

unlicensed 5GHz UNII which allows free use

of bandwidth

Technology Advance Signal Processing algorithms

achieve maturity, enabling OFDM

through wireless media

Convergence of factors led to Atheros’ being founded

Now for Something Completely Different

Dr. John Hennessy,

then Provost,

now President of

Stanford University

Founded by….

Dr. Teresa Meng,

Professor of Electrical

Engineering,

Stanford University

Atheros CMOS/Single Chip Wi-Fi … The Project


1998 – 2001 (1st 11a product, 3 years) – 2004 (1st 11a/g single chip)


Standard “digital” .25u CMOS for radio

1st, 5 GHz Wi-Fi radio

1st, dataplane only Wi-Fi chip (no local processor, needed heavy modeling)

Enabled by wireless standards: 802.11a, b …

Enabled by standard PC interfaces (Cardbus, miniPCI, NDIS drivers)

Enabled by cellphone packaging, Cadence design tools

Enabled by new 5 GHz unlicensed band


Disrupt Wi-Fi solution space in cost and performance

Not fail as a startup


50-100 in analog, digital design, IC and system test, driver s/w, algorithms


CMOS/RF at Stanford and Berkeley

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SUPPORTIVE SETTING

COMMON PURPOSE

Atheros CMOS/Single Chip Wi-Fi … The Collaboration

CMOS/RF inspiration Silicon Valley eco-system Multi-disciplinary team formed Critical mass in many critical areas

Venture funding Unflagging belief in Teresa Meng, and she in us Deep interest from TSMC, Cadence Wired networking eco-system to co-opt Fabless model fully in place

Do or die together Extremely competitive surrounding Excitement in pioneering CMOS Emerging laptops, market forces

My Top 10 on High Performing, Highly Collaborative Teams

1. COHERENT, UNWAVERING, SUPPORTIVE LEADERSHIP ABOVE

2. HIGHLY SELECTIVE, BUT DEEP RISK TAKING W CRITICAL MASS IN TEAMS

3. CONVERGENCE OF MULTIPLE TECHNOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES & INSPIRATION

4. ENGINEERING PIONEERING AND NOT BUSINESS PLAN PIONEERING (FOR ME)

5. HIGHLY ADAPTABLE, FLEXIBLE ENGINEERING AND BUSINESS CONTRIBUTORS

6. PROJECT LEADER AS AN ORCHESTRA CONDUCTOR, NOT JUST A “MANAGER”

7. (PRODUCTIVE) PRESSURE TO SUCCEED INTERNALLY

8. PRESSURE TO SUCCEED EXTERNALLY (COMPETITION, IDEA’S SHELF LIFE)

9. READY SUPPLY CHAIN FOR PRODUCTIZATION

10.TOOLS ADEQUATE TO THE TASK

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SUPPORTIVE SETTING

COMMON PURPOSE

University Creative Collaboration?

Multidisciplinary Competencies

Industrial Alliance for support (and insight)

System solution for compelling applications

Device Scaling Turns to System Scaling: The System X Alliance

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System Driven Innovation • Finding solutions at all levels of the Technology Stack • Hub for System Integration at Stanford

Transistor

Circuit

System

Process Technology

Application

Inn

ova

tio

n

Insp

ira

tio

n

Multidisciplinary Collaboration • >50 profs across >10 depts • Focus areas include: Energy, IOE,

Quantum, BIO, Design Productivity, Heterogeneous Integration, Computing

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Alliance of University & Industry • Foundation of CIS semiconductor relationships • 23 members reflect our changing industry

Thank you

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Thoughts on Creative Collaboration - HLF Giant...

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