James Masters of Intel to Lead Si2 Extensions Steering Group

AUSTIN, Texas — James Masters of Intel has been elected chairman of the Silicon Integration Initiative Extensions Steering Group, a team of industry volunteers that creates productivity enhancements to OpenAccess, the world’s most widely used standard API and reference database for integrated circuit design. Si2 is a leading research and development joint venture that provides standard interoperability solutions for integrated circuit design tools.

The ESG was launched in 2011 to increase the ease and pace of adding OpenAccess functionality, through extensions to the database, without affecting the consistency and stability of the core API standard and its associated reference implementation.

Marshall Tiner, Si2 director of Production Standards, said the ESG is responsible for reviewing and approving new features and capabilities for the API which are not part of the regular development process. “This has allowed for more flexible development in the OpenAccess environment to meet ever-changing market requirements,” Tiner said.

“James has played a major role in the ESG since its creation. His work with Si2 is an example of his decade-long advocacy for standards to streamline the design flow and maximize productivity and reuse,” Tiner added. “That includes guidance developing the ESG’s major subgroups, oaScript and oaxPop. oaScript provides scripting-language access into the database for Python, tcl, Ruby, and perl, allowing rapid development of user-created tools. oaxPop is the polygon operators extension that makes use of oaScript to provide a Python-based, rapid polygon analysis package for users.”

A 23-year Intel veteran, Masters currently manages an Intel team that enables custom layout capabilities of process nodes, including development of process design kit content. He works with EDA suppliers to improve the overall custom layout of the EDA ecosystem.