It was sunny and mild in Boulder, that winter day in January 2000. MP Associates had graciously offered their office space for a meeting of Dennis Brophy, Shrenik Mehta, and myself. I had just left Mentor following its acquisition of Veribest, and did not have an office; Lee Wood saved the day by volunteering MP Associates. The goal of the meeting was to finalize the merger between VHDL International (VI) and OVI (Open Verilog International). The two organizations had conducted a valiant and fair marketing game for the supremacy of their respective languages: VHDL and Verilog. Twelve years before, when Cadence had recognized that a proprietary language could not win over an IEEE standard, OVI had been created with the aim of convincing people that Verilog was indeed an open language. But as the century was coming to a close it had been obvious to Dennis, who chaired OVI, and myself as chair of VI, that our respective organizations had served their purpose and were turning to other matters. Dennis and I had discussed a merger for all of 1999, and we had the approval of both Boards to conclude the work.

The job of representing VHDL and Verilog had been finished. Yet, there was a need for an organization that would provide a forum for corporations to discuss requirements and specifications for needed standards in EDA. So, simply terminating the two organizations was not a wise move. The corporate members of both organizations agreed that they would like to have such organization. Sun Microsystems was the most active of the users companies in both VI and OVI, and took an appropriate role in the forming of the new organization.

The two organizations had discussed a merger for almost a year. The consensus on the methods to achieve it had been reached a few weeks before, during a meeting at my house that in addition to Shrenik, Dennis and myself also involved Stan Krolikoski who was the Vice Chair of VI. Given my employment, unemployment would be a better description, Stan had to carry the burden to make the decisions official and final with the VI Board.

Choosing a name

As with most projects, the devil is in the details. It was not as difficult for the three of us to design the structure of the new organization as it was to find a name. Our specification required a name that was "active" that is that it implied action and urgency in standards development, while at the same time we needed to pick a name that was available in the ".com", ".org". and ".net" Internet domains. That took almost two hours, as we stumbled our way across the net, trying various acronyms and finding all kinds of pages, including some sexually explicit ones that really embarrassed poor Lee Wood, who had volunteered his time to help.

Eventually I resorted to my native language, Italian, and thought of fast red Italian cars. If you wanted an organization that would be the catalyst for standards formation in the industry, why not put "the pedal to the metal". The goal was not to create a need, but to accelerate the development of a solution. Accellera, the imperative of the Italian verb "accellerare", to accelerate, came to mind. We tried it, it worked, and Dennis bought the three domain names with his credit card. The most challenging part of the work was done. Of course it took longer to finalize the legal work. But by DAC 2000 Accellera was operating and its corporate membership was growing.

The Report Card

Ten years have passed since that day of glistening snow on the Rockies and brisk clean air of Boulder. Those who know Shrenik, Dennis, and me, know that we are driven, determined people who are not likely to take their eyes off the goal. My new career has me working at the margin of the industry; neither a tool producer nor a user: simply an observer. Yet the three of us have never stopped to work for Accellera. Shrenik and Dennis have held various officer's position in the organization during this time, and I have helped when and where I could. How did Accellera do in its first ten years?

In an industry that over its fifty year or so life as created a large number of consortia, putting another one together is not a very noteworthy accomplishment. Yet, Accellera has developed and turned over to the IEEE for world-wide standardization more standards than all the others combined. It can now be proud of ten IEEE standards developed from the work its Technical Committees did. With the merger with the SPIRIT Consortium that happened in 2009, that number became eleven. Here is the list, in no particular order:
· SystemVerilog or IEEE Std.1800;
· Unified Power Format (UPF) or IEEE Std. 1801;
· Open Compression Interface (OCI) or IEEE Std. 1450;
· VHDL or IEEE Std.1076;
· Verilog or IEEE Std. 1364;
· Property Specification Language (PSL) or IEEE Std.1850;
· Standard Delay Format (SDF) or IEEE Std. 1497;
· Delay and Power Calculation System (DPCS) or IEEE Std. 1481;
· Advanced Library Format (ALF) or IEEE Std. 1603;
· Open Model Interface (OMI) or IEEE Std. 1499;
· IPXACT or IEEE Std. 1685 (developed by SPIRIT).

If that were not enough, Accellera has also developed four industry standards during its existence. They are:

• Verilog AMS;
• SCE-MI, Co-Emulation Modeling Interface;
• OVL, Open Verification Library;
• VIP, Verification Intellectual Property Best Practices Interoperability Guide.

This are not marginal efforts. All of the standards are not only used daily in the EDA industry, some have created or helped to create new market segments. In July of 2009 Synopsys recognized the work of Accellera and the SPIRIT Consortium by awarding its Tenzing Norgay Interoperability Award to the newly merged organizations.

Accellera is also the sponsor of DVCon, the yearly conference dedicated to design verification issues, methods, and tools. With the industry consensus that verification is still the most costly phase of product development, DVCon is the best place for designers and verification engineers to meet, share information, and learn.

The Future

Standards making is neither easy nor cheap, just ask some of the other consortia around our industry. Yet Accellera, whose budget is less than other less productive consortia, has succeeded by dedicating the majority of its budget to the support of its Technical Committee, and by avoiding paid administrators. Can this be possible now that the organization has grown? May be not, but it has worked so far! Corporate members who have employees spending time and efforts in managing Accellera, may be more interested in the progress of its work than in other organizations where the membership fee is the only exposure.

Yet, the present world financial climate demands more investments on product development and less on technology development. Short term versus long term is a choice every executive has had to make, both in good and difficult times. But when scarce resources need to be invested, investing in a proven organization that has and continues to deliver quality work is a better bet than most.

Accellera will celebrate its tenth birthday at DVCon in February. The fact that I will not be there is a reflection of the financial environment we are living through, and the choices people are forced to make. But as long as there is a need for interoperability and excellence in methodology Accellera will be there.