Don’t You Forget About “e”

Don’t You Forget About “e”
by Daniel Nenni on 09-25-2020 at 10:00 am

e Flow Vert

I imagine that the title of this post will remind many of 80s synth-pop, or perhaps the movie The Breakfast Club. But my topic is the venerable hardware verification language (HVL) known simply as e. It has quite an interesting history and it played a key role in the development of the modern testbench methodology that most chip verification… Read More


Update on Mentor’s Acquisition of Avatar Integrated Systems

Update on Mentor’s Acquisition of Avatar Integrated Systems
by Daniel Nenni on 09-23-2020 at 10:00 am

route centric architecture

Mentor Graphics, a Siemens Business, has completed their acquisition of EDA company Avatar Integrated Systems.  I recently spoke with Joe Sawicki, Executive VP of the Mentor IC EDA segment, about the acquisition strategy and IC Design platform goals for integration of the Avatar products.

Avatar (formerly ATopTech) focused… Read More


Executive Interview: Vic Kulkarni of ANSYS

Executive Interview: Vic Kulkarni of ANSYS
by Daniel Nenni on 09-23-2020 at 6:00 am

Ansys Ideas 1

On the eve of the Innovative Designs Enabled by Ansys Semiconductor (IDEAS) Forum I spoke with Vic on a range of topics including his opening keynote: Accelerating Moore and Beyond Moore with Multiphysics. You can register here

Vic Kulkarni is Vice President and Chief Strategist, Semiconductor Business Unit, Ansys, San Jose.… Read More


CEO Interview: Murilo Pilon Pessatti of Chipus Microelectronics

CEO Interview: Murilo Pilon Pessatti of Chipus Microelectronics
by Daniel Nenni on 09-21-2020 at 6:00 am

MuriloPessatti Photo

Murilo Pilon Pessatti is an Electrical Engineer with a MSEE in Analog IC design. He studied in Brazil at São Paulo University (USP) and earned a masters at Campinas State University (UNICAMP). Murilo then moved to Lisbon in Europe to work for ChipIdea, in the early 2000’s when the smartphone era was just taking off.

“I… Read More


WEBINAR: Design Adaptive eFPGA IP

WEBINAR: Design Adaptive eFPGA IP
by Daniel Nenni on 09-18-2020 at 10:00 am

Menta Adaptive Design eFPGA Webinar 1

Since the start of PROMS, PLDs and FPGAs we have learned the importance of programmability in modern semiconductor design. Today we have eFPGAs for “design adaptive” embedded programmability and that is what this webinar is all about.

Several key points are discussed starting with the Law of Accelerating Returns as it applies… Read More


GLOBALFOUNDRIES Goes Virtual with 2020 Global Technology Conference Series!

GLOBALFOUNDRIES Goes Virtual with 2020 Global Technology Conference Series!
by Daniel Nenni on 09-15-2020 at 10:00 am

GTC 400x400 1

GlobalFoundries is one of the more interesting semiconductor stories of this decade. They started as a spinout of the AMD fabs then acquired Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing in 2009 and the IBM Microelectronics business in 2014.

Now that events are virtual it is a great time for my fellow semiconductor professionals to

Read More

CEO Interview: Pengwei Qian of SkillCAD

CEO Interview: Pengwei Qian of SkillCAD
by Daniel Nenni on 09-14-2020 at 6:00 am

IMG 4723

Pengwei Qian is the founder and CEO of SkillCAD, a grassroots EDA company that has amassed the most impressive customer list (60+ companies) I have experienced for a company of this size, absolutely.

Pengwei has a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and a Masters in Material Science from Fudan University and a Masters in Electronic Engineering… Read More


Online Verification Meet-up With Intel and Arm!

Online Verification Meet-up With Intel and Arm!
by Daniel Nenni on 09-11-2020 at 10:00 am

Online meetup sep semiwiki

Veriest is headquartered in Israel with engineering sites in Serbia & Hungary. The team has accumulated a wealth of experience through involvement in projects in the forefront of semiconductor technology.

Veriest maintains unrivaled quality standards in terms of both service and knowledge. With the ability to take on … Read More


S2C Announces 300 Million Gate Prototyping System with Intel® Stratix® 10 GX 10M FPGAs

S2C Announces 300 Million Gate Prototyping System with Intel® Stratix® 10 GX 10M FPGAs
by Daniel Nenni on 09-08-2020 at 10:00 am

10M0904

In 2016 SemiWiki published a book “Prototypical: The Emergence of FPGA-Based Prototyping for SoC Design”. Today we are writing Prototypical II since a LOT of prototyping innovation has happened in the last four years, absolutely.

For example:

Quad 10M Prodigy™ Logic System extends the capacity leadership to simplifyRead More


World’s Leading Chip Designers at IDEAS Digital Forum Show How to Streamline Design Flows and Reduce Design Cost

World’s Leading Chip Designers at IDEAS Digital Forum Show How to Streamline Design Flows and Reduce Design Cost
by Daniel Nenni on 09-03-2020 at 10:00 am

ANSYS IDEAS Airplane

Innovative Designs Enabled by Ansys Semiconductor

I’m excited to announce that general registration is now open for the new Ansys IDEAS Digital Forum!  IDEAS, hosted by Ansys Semiconductor, is a virtual gathering of top industry executives, thought leaders, and designers from some of the biggest IP, chip design, semiconductor… Read More