When we think of EDA standards, we usually think of interface formats, languages and databases. These standards allow all engineers to do something the same way, furthering tool interoperability and improving design reuse. I’ve spent a fair amount of my career helping get these standards created and adopted.

In theory, the development of an EDA standard might sound like a simple task, but we all know that such agreements can take years to materialize. And it’s not just our industry that faces challenges in standardization. It’s the same for just about any industry you can think of. Except, that is, in the summer of 2009, when an EDA standard was developed in 10 days...all because of Twitter.

As we all know, the Design Automation Conference (DAC) is the Super Bowl of EDA conferences. In July 2009, the venue for the 46th occurrence of DAC was San Francisco's Moscone Center. While planning for our booths on the show floor and all the surrounding activities, I proposed adding a new form of interactive communication to DAC. A small group of people in the EDA and semiconductor industries had begun using Twitter to talk with each other, share information, and yes, check out the competition. I thought it would be interesting to display Twitter activity that was related to DAC in one of Synopsys’ booths. We decided to create a 14-foot tall "Twitter Tower" in Synopsys’ Standards Booth that supported two large plasma screens to display DAC-related Twitter content....