Synopsys Offers First Single-Vendor Comprehensive Photonic IC Design Flow

Synopsys Offers First Single-Vendor Comprehensive Photonic IC Design Flow
by Daniel Nenni on 08-06-2018 at 7:00 am

Synopsys has a long history of being a thought leader and it’s not surprising to see the company jumping into the forefront of new technologies. For decades, I’ve been steeped in electronic IC design and it caught me by surprise to find that Synopsys had been quietly working on filling out their portfolio in the optical design solutions… Read More


Speak N Spell

Speak N Spell
by Daniel Nenni on 08-03-2018 at 7:00 am

This is the ninth in the series of “20 Questions with Wally Rhines”

Success has many authors and the Speak & Spell product from Texas Instruments generated lots of write-ups to demonstrate this. For most of the semiconductor industry, results of innovation were not apparent to the masses but, for the consumer … Read More


Deep learning fueling the AI revolution with Interlaken IP Subsystem

Deep learning fueling the AI revolution with Interlaken IP Subsystem
by Daniel Nenni on 07-30-2018 at 7:00 am

AI is revolutionizing and transforming virtually every industry in the digital world. Advances in computing power and deep learning have enabled AI to reach a tipping point toward major disruption and rapid advancement. However, these applications require much higher performance and bandwidth requiring new kinds of IP and… Read More


Stubbornness Captures an Entire Disruptive Technology and Leads to an Academy Award

Stubbornness Captures an Entire Disruptive Technology and Leads to an Academy Award
by Daniel Nenni on 07-27-2018 at 7:00 am

This is the eighth in the series of “20 Questions with Wally Rhines”

In 1972, I joined TI and was assigned to work on a new contract that had just been awarded and badly needed staffing. The U.S. Department of Defense had decided that solid-state charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensors were going to be a strategic technology… Read More


Maximize Bandwidth in your Massively Parallel AI SoCs?

Maximize Bandwidth in your Massively Parallel AI SoCs?
by Daniel Nenni on 07-20-2018 at 12:00 pm

Artificial Intelligence is one of the most talked about topics on the conference circuit this year and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. AI is also one of the trending topics on SemiWiki with organic search bringing us a wealth of new viewers. You may also have noticed that AI is a hot topic for webinars like the one I am writing… Read More


TI Patent Priorities

TI Patent Priorities
by Daniel Nenni on 07-20-2018 at 7:00 am

This is the seventh in the series of “20 Questions with Wally Rhines”

Probably the most innovative person I met at Texas Instruments, other than Jack Kilby, was Ken Bean. Ken had a list of patents that would impress even the most skeptical. He started his career at Eagle Picher and came to TI in the mid 1960s. He was a warm,… Read More


SEMICON West Intel 10nm and GF 7nm Update

SEMICON West Intel 10nm and GF 7nm Update
by Daniel Nenni on 07-18-2018 at 7:00 am

SEMICON West seemed a little slow last week but maybe it was just me. I’m sure SEMI will come out with record breaking numbers but I did not see it in the exhibit hall (see the video). What I did see was hundreds of exhibitors but I had no idea what they did. San Francisco again was very congested and smelly. I talked to a friend who is in public… Read More


Black Scholes and IC Design

Black Scholes and IC Design
by Daniel Nenni on 07-13-2018 at 7:00 am

This is the sixth in the series of “20 Questions with Wally Rhines”

From the earliest days of my childhood, I was always trying to find ways to make money – paper routes, lawn mowing, coke sales at football games – I did it all. And, except for a motorcycle I bought during junior high school when, at age 14, I could get a driver’s… Read More


55DAC Trip Report IP Quality

55DAC Trip Report IP Quality
by Daniel Nenni on 07-09-2018 at 7:00 am

This year I signed books in the Fractal booth (compliments of Fractal) and let me tell you it was quite an experience. IP quality is a very touchy subject and the source of many more tape-out delays than I had imagined. As it turns out, commercial IP is the biggest offender which makes no sense to me whatsoever. Even more shocking, one… Read More


TI: Semiconductor Industry History of Innovation

TI: Semiconductor Industry History of Innovation
by Daniel Nenni on 07-06-2018 at 7:00 am

This is the fifth in the series of “20 Questions with Wally Rhines”

Texas Instruments is a remarkable company founded by remarkable people. And Eric Jonsson was one of the most remarkable visionaries of the 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century. He was a renaissance man who created an industry and a fortune by following the needs… Read More