Samsung 5nm and TSMC 6nm Update

Samsung 5nm and TSMC 6nm Update
by Daniel Nenni on 04-16-2019 at 12:00 pm

TSMC and Samsung continue to raise the competitive bar for FinFET foundry market share with dueling announcements this week. As I mentioned previously in the blog Semiconductor Foundry Landscape Update 2019, FinFETs are the market to watch with the coming onslaught of 5G and AI chips on the edge, in the cloud, and in our autonomous… Read More


From Wild West to Modern Life the Semiconductor Evolution

From Wild West to Modern Life the Semiconductor Evolution
by Daniel Nenni on 04-15-2019 at 7:00 am

What started as blogs, or vignettes as Wally calls them, posted on SemiWiki is now a free PDF eBook. The journey starts with his school days at Stanford through 20+ years at TI and 24+ years at Mentor Graphics. Wally has traveled millions of miles meeting with every customer imaginable while presenting hundreds of different keynotes… Read More


My Thoughts on Cadence in the Cloud

My Thoughts on Cadence in the Cloud
by Daniel Nenni on 04-03-2019 at 12:00 pm

The cloud is a highly popular term that a lot of people don’t fully understand. If you are one of those people please read on as I will share my experience, observations, and opinions. Even if you are a cloud aficionado you may want to catch up on what’s new with EDA cloud services so again read on.

When we first started SemiWiki 9 years … Read More


FPGA Landscape Update 2019

FPGA Landscape Update 2019
by Daniel Nenni on 04-01-2019 at 7:00 am

In 2015 Intel acquired Altera for $16.7B changing one of the most heated rivalries (Xilinx vs Altera) the fabless semiconductor ecosystem has ever seen. Prior to the acquisition the FPGA market was fairly evenly split between Xilinx and Altera with Lattice and Actel playing to market niches in the shadows. There were also two FPGA… Read More


Semiconductor Foundry Landscape Update 2019

Semiconductor Foundry Landscape Update 2019
by Daniel Nenni on 03-29-2019 at 5:00 am

The semiconductor foundry landscape changed in 2018 when GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Intel paused their leading edge foundry efforts. Intel quietly told partners they would no longer pursue the foundry business and GF publicly shut down their 7nm process development and pivoted towards existing process nodes while trimming headcount… Read More


With Great Power Comes Great Visuality

With Great Power Comes Great Visuality
by Daniel Nenni on 03-29-2019 at 12:00 am

Every system-on-chip (SoC) designer worries about power. Many widely used electronics applications run on batteries, including smartphones, tablets, autonomous vehicles, and many Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. Even “big iron” products such as network switches and compute servers must be careful when it comes to power… Read More


Qualcomm Intel Facebook and Semiconductor IP

Qualcomm Intel Facebook and Semiconductor IP
by Daniel Nenni on 03-20-2019 at 12:00 am

What does Qualcomm, Intel, and Facebook have in common? Well, for one thing they all bought network onchip communications (NoC) IP companies. As I have mentioned before, semiconductor IP is the foundation of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem and I believe this trend of acquisitions will continue. So, if you are going to start… Read More


Surviving in the Age of Digitalization

Surviving in the Age of Digitalization
by Daniel Nenni on 03-18-2019 at 7:00 am

There was an interesting keynote at DVCon last month. It was titled “Thriving in the Age of Digitalization” which introduced the concept of digital twins for design and production. It was presented by Fram Akiki who is a relative newcomer to EDA but has an interesting history so I will start there.

Fram and I got started in the semiconductor… Read More


China Innovation Forum and ES DESIGN West

China Innovation Forum and ES DESIGN West
by Daniel Nenni on 03-15-2019 at 7:00 am

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I had a chat with Bob Smith, Executive Director of ESD Alliance, about the upcoming SEMI conference in China. More than 100,000 people are expected to attend which is beyond my comprehension. SEMICON in San Francisco is maybe 20,000 people which is the largest conference I attend. I’m not sure if the Design Automation Conference… Read More


Silvaco WEBINAR: Nanometer Library Characterization Challenges and Solutions

Silvaco WEBINAR: Nanometer Library Characterization Challenges and Solutions
by Daniel Nenni on 03-14-2019 at 7:00 am

As you may know, Silvaco has done some very clever acquisitions to fuel their unprecedented growth over the last five years. We have a wiki that tracks EDA Mergers and Acquisitions, Silvaco included, and it is the most viewed wiki on SemiWiki.com with 102,005 views thus far.

Silvaco acquired Nangate in March of 2018. NanGate got … Read More