Having returned from the IPC Apex trade show and listening to comments from stakeholders who are charged for volunteering their time to develop standards, one wonders if there is a better way.

Having spent four years of my career in standards development, I know the process well. Groups of engineers, often from competing companies, gather around tables to debate the ins and outs of everything from what an end-product should look like and how it should perform to the placement of commas and the meaning of “shall” versus “should.”

Typically, the acquisition of a software distributor isn’t big news.

But EMA Design Automation isn’t your ordinary distributor. And its purchase, by Cadence, isn’t your ordinary acquisition.