Intel Bay Trail Fail II

Intel Bay Trail Fail II
by Daniel Nenni on 11-27-2013 at 9:00 am

To follow up my Bay Trail Fail blog which predicted that the leading edge Intel 22nm mobile SoC offering would fail, I must admit I was wrong. I did not think Bay Trail would see any traction in the tablet market but, as it turns out, Intel will ship 40M of those parts in 2014. Did you notice I said ship and not sell? Read on……… … Read More


Semiconductor Process Development: A View from the Trenches at IEDM

Semiconductor Process Development: A View from the Trenches at IEDM
by Daniel Nenni on 11-25-2013 at 10:00 pm

There is always a lot of posturing and pontificating when semiconductor executives talk about the future of process development. They are fighting an air war of perception and investor expectations, so naturally want to make sure they have plenty to brag about. But, as we pointed out recently with Intel’s problems at 14nm, moving… Read More


Front-End Design Summit: Physically Aware Design

Front-End Design Summit: Physically Aware Design
by Daniel Nenni on 11-24-2013 at 12:00 pm

Save closure time and boost performance by incorporating knowledge of physically aware design early into your front-end design implementation flow

With the adoption of advanced process nodes, design closure is becoming increasingly difficult due to the lack of convergence between the front end and the back end of the register-transfer… Read More


Intel’s Mea Culpa!

Intel’s Mea Culpa!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-24-2013 at 11:00 am

The Intel analyst meeting last week reads like an absolute train wreck with INTC stock dropping 5%+ the very next day. Since I work in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem during the day I was not able to listen to it live like the other pundits. Nor am I as easily fooled by Power Point slides. I did however review the materials and would… Read More


QCOM delivers first TSMC 20nm mobile chips!

QCOM delivers first TSMC 20nm mobile chips!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-21-2013 at 3:00 pm

QCOM is now sampling the TSMC 20nm version of its market dominating Gobi LTE modem. The announcement also included a new turbo charged version of their 28nm Snapdragon 800 SoC with a Krait 450 quad core CPU and Adrino 420 GPU. Given the comparable benchmarks between the Intel 22nm SoC and the 28nm SoCs from Apple and QCOM, the new 20nm… Read More


Meeting the Challenges of Designing Internet of Things SoCs with the Right Design Flow and IP

Meeting the Challenges of Designing Internet of Things SoCs with the Right Design Flow and IP
by Daniel Nenni on 11-18-2013 at 7:00 pm

Connecting “things” to the Internet and enabling sensing and remote control, data gathering, transmission, and analysis improves many areas: safety and quality of life, healthcare, manufacturing and service delivery, energy efficiency, and the environment. The concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) is quickly becoming… Read More


A Brief History of eSilicon

A Brief History of eSilicon
by Daniel Nenni on 11-16-2013 at 10:00 pm

eSilicon Corporation was founded in 2000 with Jack Harding as the founding CEO and Seth Neiman of Crosspoint Venture Partners as the first venture investor and outside Board member. They both remain involved in the company today, with Jack continuing as CEO and Seth now serving as Chairman of the Board.

Both Harding and Neiman brought… Read More


Signoff Summit: The Fastest Path to Design Signoff

Signoff Summit: The Fastest Path to Design Signoff
by Daniel Nenni on 11-13-2013 at 8:00 pm

Cadence’s Signoff Summit will be held next week, November 21 at Cadence in San Jose.

This is the first of a series of all-day Signoff Summits from Cadence that focus on the multiple facets of design signoff. This first summit will include keynote addresses plus sessions covering the multiple solution components that comprise… Read More


ASICs for Bitcoin Mining!

ASICs for Bitcoin Mining!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-12-2013 at 8:00 pm

One of the hottest areas for Application Specific Integrated Circuits today is Bitcoin mining. A good friend of mine has a son who is involved in a Bitcoin start-up so we have been discussing this at great length and I will share what I have learned thus far. Coincidently, my wife asked me about Bitcoin during our most recent walk down… Read More


Xilinx Begins Shipping TSMC 20nm FPGAs!

Xilinx Begins Shipping TSMC 20nm FPGAs!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-11-2013 at 10:00 am

Xilinx just announced the shipment of the first TSMC based 20 nm FPGAs, beating Altera to the punch yet again. Xilinx was also the first to ship TSMC 28nm FPGAs and will undoubtedly beat Altera to 14nm which could be the knockout punch we have all been waiting for. The Xilinx UltraScale is a new family of FPGAs that will use 20nm and 16nm… Read More