Importance of Open-Source EDA Tools for Academia

But man, EDA programing is not one of those things you can just take a 6-week bootcamp and start hacking away on. Typically, you eat raman for 5-7 years to get a Ph.D., then you spend 5-10 years as a newb making your chops. And nobody takes you seriously until you've done the "cursus honorarium" of working for Synopsys, Cadence, and one or two chip companies.

Virtually every problem is NP-Complete, and the problem size is doubling every few years because of Moore's law. You need to learn circuit theory, computational geometry, optimization, transmission line theory---and you've got to keep up with all the cool programming techniques, like lock-free programming--because you are working on next-generation sized programs using this generation's computers.

What I'm trying to say is that its like a 20-year journey to be able to write this kind of software. And now, you've got to compete against....free?

I agree schools need access to these tools, but if we are going to make Chip Fabrication a national priority, we'll need to spend money not just on subsidies to billion-dollar companies, but we also need ensure that there is a solid pipeline of skilled and trained people to make the whole thing work.

Cut the schools a check big enough for them to buy the tools they need at a price which is commensurate with the expertise it takes to build them.

[1]: https://theopenroadproject.org/