I would guess that most people have seen or at least heard of the Matrix movies but how many people can remember who vanquished the earth to begin the series? It was artificial intelligence (AI) of course which seemed pretty far fetched 20 years ago, but today not so much. In fact, for those of us in the AI know it seems quite likely in some… Read More
Author: Daniel Nenni
Debugging Hardware Designs Using Software Capabilities
Every few months, I touch base with Cristian Amitroaie, CEO of AMIQ EDA, to learn more about how AMIQ is helping hardware design and verification engineers be more productive. Quite often, his answers surprise me. When he started describing their Design and Verification Tools (DVT) Eclipse Integrated Development Environment… Read More
Cadence Continues Photonics Industry Engagement
On November 13, Cadence held its annual Photonics Summit. Cadence has been hosting this event for several years with the intention of advancing the photonics industry. With this event, Cadence has been a catalyst in furthering photonic product development. It’s quite remarkable that Cadence hosts such an event in a field where… Read More
Why is the Press Giving AMD a Free Pass?
The Intel versus AMD rivalry is legendary amongst us Silicon Valley AARP members and is one of the reasons why the semiconductor industry is as competitive as it is today, absolutely.
AMD’s boisterous corporate culture started with AMD’s co-founder and long time CEO Jerry Sanders. Jerry was the ultimate showman but his credo “People… Read More
IEDM 2019 Press Lunch Exposed!
One of the many benefits of blogging for SemiWiki is the free conference passes and buffet lunches, absolutely. IEDM is one of the more prestigious semiconductor conferences, now in its 65th year, is being held at the Hilton Hotel in San Francisco’s famed Union Square this week. This year more than 1,910 semiconductor professionals… Read More
Bob Swan says Intel 7nm equals TSMC 5nm!
Bob Swan is really starting to grow on me. Admittedly, I am generally not a fan of CFOs taking CEO roles at semiconductor companies but thus far Bob is doing a great job. This comes from my outside-looking-in observations and from the people I know inside Intel, absolutely.
Bob did a fireside chat with Credit Suisse at their 23rd annual… Read More
WEBINAR: Analyzing PowerMOS Devices to Reduce Power Loss and Improve Reliability
The symbol for a PowerMOS device in a converter circuit schematic looks simple enough. However, it belies a great deal of hidden complexity. A single device is actually a huge array of parallel intrinsic devices connected together to act as a single high power device. While their gate lengths are small, as with many other MOS devices,… Read More
Why is Intel Still Short on Chips?
Intel is again apologizing to customers for 14nm chip shortages. As a result PC makers are revising down revenue expectations for 2020. Something does not smell right here. I have also read that due to the continued shortages Intel will be second sourcing CPU chips to Samsung 14nm. This smells even worse, absolutely.
First and foremost,… Read More
Intel vs AMD vs Google vs Amazon vs NUVIA
Arguably the cloud was the quickest road to riches for chip designers large and small. As an emerging company, if you wanted to raise money just put “Datacenter” in your pitch deck and you were assured millions. You would be competing with semiconductor’s version of David and Goliath (AMD and Intel) but that was a good thing, right?… Read More
Where has the ASIC Business Gone?
As the traditional ASIC business disappears before our eyes with the recent divestitures and acquisitions, I have been asking questions amongst the fabless semiconductor ecosystem and am getting few answers.
Who or what is going to step in to enable start-ups and new to silicon systems companies with application specific chips?… Read More








PDF Solutions Charts a Course for the Future at Its User Conference and Analyst Day