CTO Interview: Peter Theunis of Methodics

CTO Interview: Peter Theunis of Methodics
by Daniel Nenni on 02-06-2017 at 7:00 am

Fascinated by computers at a very young age, Peter got his degree in Computer Science and was brought to the Bay Area via AIESEC Berkeley’s student exchange program to write his thesis. He has now more than 15 years of professional experience in software engineering, large scale systems architecture and data center engineering… Read More


AMD vs Intel Update!

AMD vs Intel Update!
by Daniel Nenni on 02-04-2017 at 10:00 am

Is it just me or has AMD just pulled off one of the most amazing semiconductor comebacks of the century? Let’s take a closer look.

Who doesn’t long for the days when Intel and AMD went head to head in the battle for microprocessor supremacy? Back then Intel, was still operating under the Andrew Grove mantra of “Only the Paranoid Survive”… Read More


Open-Silicon Update: 125M ASICs shipped!

Open-Silicon Update: 125M ASICs shipped!
by Daniel Nenni on 02-03-2017 at 12:00 pm

As you all know I am a big fan of the ASIC business model. It was critical in the transformation of the fabless semiconductor industry and still plays a critical part in our success. In fact, the ASIC business model is leading the way for systems companies to make their own chips. Remember, Apple started with the ASIC business model … Read More


SPIE Advanced Lithography and Synopsys!

SPIE Advanced Lithography and Synopsys!
by Daniel Nenni on 02-01-2017 at 7:00 am

SPIE is the premier event for lithography held in Silicon Valley and again Scotten Jones and I will be attending. EUV is generally the star of the show and this year will be no different now that TSMC has committed to EUV production in 2019.

Last year at SPIE, TSMC presented the history of EUV development from the beginning in 1985 as … Read More


CEO Interview: David Dutton of Silvaco

CEO Interview: David Dutton of Silvaco
by Daniel Nenni on 01-30-2017 at 7:00 am

Silvaco has undergone one of the most impressive EDA transformations so it was a pleasure to interview the man behind it. David Dutton’s 30+ year career started at Intel, Maxim, and Mattson Technology where he led the company’s turnaround and finished as President, CEO, and board member. David joined Silvaco as CEO… Read More


AAPl Vs QCOM Who wins?

AAPl Vs QCOM Who wins?
by Daniel Nenni on 01-26-2017 at 7:00 am

Things just got interesting in the iPhone supply chain with the $1B AAPL Vs QCOM legal action filed this week. For the life of me I could not understand why Apple second sourced the normally QCOM modem in the iPhone 7. It caused quite a stir in the technical community but we could only surmise that it was a price issue on the business side.… Read More


DARPA Flex Logix and TSMC!

DARPA Flex Logix and TSMC!
by Daniel Nenni on 01-23-2017 at 10:00 am

When I first saw emerging semiconductor IP company Flex Logix actively involved with TSMC I knew something big was coming and boy was I right. DARPA announced today that an agreement is in place with Flex Logix to develop EFLX eFPGA technology on TSMC 16FFC for use by companies or Government agencies designing chips for the US Government.… Read More


Technology Update With Andrew Faulkner and Jim Lipman of Sidense

Technology Update With Andrew Faulkner and Jim Lipman of Sidense
by Daniel Nenni on 01-23-2017 at 7:00 am

Sidense is an interesting company in a very important market segment. Sidense was founded in 2004 and their 1T-OTP memory macros are now used in hundreds of chips from 180nm to 16nm for code storage, secure encryption keys, analog and sensor trimming and calibration, ID tags, and chip and processor configuration.

If you are designing… Read More


Another Interesting Thing From TSMC!

Another Interesting Thing From TSMC!
by Daniel Nenni on 01-21-2017 at 7:00 am

As I mentioned in my previous post, the TSMC investor call this month was very interesting and Morris Chang was in fine form during the Q&A. As a semiconductor professional I think some of the questions are ridiculous but maybe they have value to the financial people. This one question from Randy, who I think is very astute, is … Read More


DesignCon 2017 and Mentor Graphics

DesignCon 2017 and Mentor Graphics
by Daniel Nenni on 01-17-2017 at 7:00 am

It’s hard to believe but this is DesignCon #22 and being a Silicon Valley conference I have attended my fair share of them. This year it seems like high speed communications will take the lead followed by the latest on PCB design tools, power and signal integrity, jitter and crosstalk, test and measurement tools, parallel … Read More