eSilicon Bucking the Trend at OFC with 7nm SerDes

eSilicon Bucking the Trend at OFC with 7nm SerDes
by Daniel Nenni on 03-11-2019 at 8:00 am

A recent press release from eSilicon caught my eye. The company has been touting their 7nm SerDes quite a bit lately – reach, power, flexibility, things like that. While those capabilities are important, any high-performance chip needs to work in the context of the system, which usually contains technology from multiple sources.… Read More


GLOBALFOUNDRIES UPDATE 2019

GLOBALFOUNDRIES UPDATE 2019
by Daniel Nenni on 03-04-2019 at 12:00 pm

The GLOBALFOUNDRIES story has been one of the more interesting ones inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem. It started in 2008 when AMD announced a partnership with ATIC of Abu Dhabi to create a new joint venture company to become the world’s first truly global semiconductor foundry. On March 4[SUP]th[/SUP] of 2009 (happy… Read More


Synopsys GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Automotive IP

Synopsys GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Automotive IP
by Daniel Nenni on 02-28-2019 at 12:00 pm

IP vendors have always had the inside track on the status of new process nodes and what customers are planning for their next designs. This is even more apparent now that systems companies are successfully doing their own chips by leveraging the massive amounts of commercial IP available today. Proving once again that IP really … Read More


Interview with Bob Smith, Executive Director of the ESD Alliance

Interview with Bob Smith, Executive Director of the ESD Alliance
by Daniel Nenni on 02-26-2019 at 7:00 am

Bob Smith is executive director of the ESD (for electronic system design) Alliance that many Semiwiki readers will remember as the EDA Consortium. As Bob explains, the semiconductor industry is changing and evolving, and the electronic system design ecosystem with it. I encourage you to take a break from what you’re doing and … Read More


Delivering Innovation for Regulated Markets

Delivering Innovation for Regulated Markets
by Daniel Nenni on 02-25-2019 at 7:00 am

When delivering devices to markets that require heavily audited compliance it is necessary to document and demonstrate development processes that follow the various standard(s) such as IEC65108, IATF16949, ISO26262.

For complex multi-disciplinary designs this can be difficult as they are often developed by multiple teams… Read More


The RISC-V Revolution is Going Global!

The RISC-V Revolution is Going Global!
by Daniel Nenni on 02-21-2019 at 12:00 pm

This Month, you can Join us in Austin, Mountain View or Boston
In 2018, we hosted several RISC-V technology symposia in India, China and Israel. These events were very successful in fueling the growing momentum surrounding the RISC-V ISA in these countries. It turns out that these events were just the tip of the iceberg. In 2019, … Read More


CEO Interview: Adnan Hamid of Breker Systems

CEO Interview: Adnan Hamid of Breker Systems
by Daniel Nenni on 02-21-2019 at 7:00 am

Breker Verification Systems solves challenges across the functional verification process for large, complex semiconductors. This includes streamlining UVM-based testbenches for IP verification, synchronizing software and hardware tests for large system-on-chips (SoCs), and simplifying test sets for hardware emulation… Read More


Silvaco on Simulation of Reliability and NBTI Aging in MOS Microelectronics

Silvaco on Simulation of Reliability and NBTI Aging in MOS Microelectronics
by Daniel Nenni on 02-20-2019 at 12:00 pm

Silvaco was founded the same year I entered the EDA industry (1984) fresh from University. I first met them at the Design Automation Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and have been an active observer of their growth ever since. In fact, Silvaco is now the largest privately held EDA company and is growing at a rapid pace. In 2014… Read More


Physical Design for Secure Split Manufacturing of ICs

Physical Design for Secure Split Manufacturing of ICs
by Daniel Nenni on 02-19-2019 at 12:00 pm

Semiconductors are not only critical to modern life, semiconductors are critical to National Security. Now that leading edge semiconductor foundries have left the United States one of the more pressing challenges is secure semiconductor manufacturing. This applies to all countries of course so let’s take a look at the International… Read More


Renaming and Refactoring in HDL Code

Renaming and Refactoring in HDL Code
by Daniel Nenni on 02-12-2019 at 12:00 pm

I’ve enjoyed my past discussions with Cristian Amitroaie, the CEO of AMIQ EDA, in which we covered their Design and Verification Tools (DVT) Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and their Verissimo SystemVerilog Testbench Linter. Cristian’s descriptions of AMIQ’s products and customers have intrigued me. They… Read More