There are growing pressures to design increasingly complex products, find talented chip designers and get those products to market. And, for every dollar spent on EDA tools, companies spend up to $5 to make those tools work together effectively. This leaves a huge chasm between product concept and reality.

As a result, savvy OEMs and semiconductor companies must place greater emphasis on their core competencies and outsource their design work to vendors. Companies that rely on vendors to provide an already developed design environment might go a step further and urge vendors to manage that design environment, effectively making the outsource vendor their CAD group.

A key consideration in this ever-changing business of design is initiating closer collaboration between the customer and design infrastructure partner, thereby transforming the productivity gap from an investment gap into a true partnership.

EDA vendors are making enhancements in design productivity, but we've seen few design concept breakthroughs in the mainstream electronic design infrastructure. It is vital that design infrastructure vendors develop capabilities to address next-generation design requirements through closer collaboration and financial involvement with and by their customers.

That collaboration will enable OEM, semiconductor and design infrastructure companies to easily communicate requirements for new design concepts. As a result, design partners can better understand future problems, work to address them and move to design methodologies that yield increases in design capacity.

I'm proposing a radical new approach to continued and increased prosperity for the electronics industry. If EDA appears to be standing with its hand out, it should be recognized as the hand of a true partner. Working with semiconductor companies, EDA will jointly develop processes that boost productivity and capacity, leading to added value in customer partnerships.

Closer collaboration between the IC and OEM companies and the EDA industry would lead to increased investment in design solutions, methodologies and environments. Traditional expenditures would evolve toward a new financial focus and enhanced development of solutions for customers.

Working hand-in-hand, we should encourage our industry to invest in its own future. Collaboration is the key to reaping dividends that will benefit us all.

Ray Bingham is President and CEO of Cadence Design Systems Inc. (San Jose, Calif.).