May 4^th, 2010. Airport city, Israel. The weather forecast promised rain, so we all came dressed for a storm, only to find a big sun smiling above us! It turned out to be a very hot and dry day. And it was the day of the ChipEx.

“ChipEx, what is that?” you might ask. Don’t feel bad for not knowing, it is only the second year that ChipEx is in the trade show business.

ChipEx is an annual international event of the Israeli semiconductor industry, sponsored by TAPEOUT magazine in cooperation with the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA). ChipEx consists of 3 main parts – vendor exhibition, technical conference and GSA executive forum. Given that the economy of Israel fared better than many other western countries, and Israelis are known for their technical innovation (The world economic forum designated Israel as one of the leading countries in the world in technological innovation. No surprise that all the latest Intel microprocessors were developed in Israel), the show was hot and sizzling with activities. Over 800+ people participated with about 50 EDA & IP companies presenting, and key-notes addressed by some industry heavy weights such as Rajiv Madhavan (CEO of Magma) and Gary Smith (Industry Analyst).

For the second year, Real Intent joined our Israel distributor Satris at ChipEx and we couldn’t be happier with our success. Our booth was hot with activity the entire time. Besides normal networking among exhibitors and friends, many senior engineers and managers were hunting for the next generation technology and Real Intent has it! It all fits that innovative people are always seeking out innovative technologies that can help them stay at the leading edge.

You will also find that a trade show in Israel is a very different experience than other places in the world. People hardly want to hear any of the “Marketing stuff” (often described in stronger word), and that’s what they call our presentations, brochures etc. Instead, people would step in, and ask about the technology. You hardly finished 2 sentences before the next question came in, as if to say – ‘we have no time to waste, give us the highlights and we’ll decide here and now if we want to hear more!’ In most cases, people did not want to see a demo or a short presentation. If they were interested, they’d ask to see it on a follow up visit. And this fits too, as innovative people usually have little patience for nonsense and are hot on the heels of the very best solutions.

We had over 40 visitors in total and many follow up visits scheduled. We definitely hit the “Real” needs in the design community with our automatic formal verification solutions targeting early functional verification, clock domain crossing verification and timing exception verification.

At the end of the day, after all the grueling questions under the constant pressure of keeping poised and technical, I was hot tired! But it was well worth the effort and also great fun for me to engage in intelligent conversation with smart people having real needs.

Thanks for the Real Intent marketing team (even though I didn’t use their “marketing stuff”:-) ), Satris and the ChipEX2010 committee for a successful show under the hot sun!

See you next year!!

May 14, 2010