James E. Solomon (born 1936 in

Boise Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown area's ...

, Idaho) is an American engineer and entrepreneur. In his lifetime, he has founded four companies, including one of the companies that merged to form the leading chip manufacturing toolmaker

Cadence Design Systems Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (stylized as cādence), headquartered in San Jose, California, is an American multinational corporation, multinational computational software company, founded in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc. The co ...

. He is an

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Fellow and received the industry's

Phil Kaufman Award The Phil Kaufman Award was established in 1994 by the EDA Consortium (now the Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community) to recognize individuals for their impact on electronic design by their contributions to electronic de ...

in 1997. Solomon holds 23 patents in

integrated chip An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

design.

Biography

Solomon graduated with BS and MS degrees in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. He began his career with

Maconomy Maconomy was a global provider of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software founded in 1989 in Denmark by Per Tejs Knudsen, Philip Dam and Ulrik Jørring. Maconomy was acquired by Deltek in 2010. History Of Maconomy Maconomy originates from t ...

, spending three years designing radar devices and components for missile control systems. The next seven years, he ran linear

integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...

design at the

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

Semiconductor Lab. After his time with Motorola, he moved to

National Semiconductor National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display drive ...

from 1970–1983, where he was director of IC design for analog and mixed-signal chips. In 1983 Solomon founded his first company, Solomon Design Automation (SDA Systems), which eventually merged with ECAD to become Cadence Design System

Near the end of his time with CDS, he co-founded Smart Machines (in 1994), a company that manufactures direct-drive robots for

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

wafer A wafer is a crisp, often sweet, very thin, flat, light and dry biscuit, often used to decorate ice cream, and also used as a garnish on some sweet dishes. Wafers can also be made into cookies with cream flavoring sandwiched between them. They ...

manufacture. The company was acquired in 1999 by

Brooks Automation Azenta (formerly Brooks Automation) was founded in 1978 and is based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. The company is a provider of automation, vacuum and instrumentation equipment for multiple markets, including semiconductor manufacturing, technol ...

. In 1995, he co-founded

Xulu Entertainment Xulu is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Cedric Xulu (1939–2020), South African footballer * Mpumelelo Xulu (born 1999), South African cricketer * Siyanda Xulu (born 1991), South African professional soccer player * Thulani Xu ...

, a computer based entertainment venture. In 2001, Solomon unveiled plans for a entertainment center to be named Xulu Univers

which would combine a restaurant/lounge with a

simulator A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the s ...

of an alien world. According to Solomon, Xulu had invested over $12 million in the project, having hired design and engineering staff from companies such as

Lucasfilm Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the ''Star Wars'' and ' ...

and

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

. Solomon was the 1997 recipient of the

"for his innovative contributions to design tool technology of benefit to electronic systems and IC designers".

References

External links

Presentation of James Solomon
by A. Richard Newton 1936 births Living people 21st-century American engineers American manufacturing businesspeople Electronic design automation people People from Boise, Idaho Silicon Valley people UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni 20th-century American businesspeople {{US-engineer-stub