Improving Yield and Reliability with In-Chip Monitoring, there’s an IP for that

Improving Yield and Reliability with In-Chip Monitoring, there’s an IP for that
by Daniel Payne on 08-24-2018 at 12:00 pm

There’s an old maxim that you can only improve what you measure, so quality experts have been talking about this concept for decades and our semiconductor industry has been the recipient of such practices to such an extent that we can now buy consumer products that include chips with over 5 billion transistors in them. You’ve… Read More


The Pain of Test Pattern Bring-up for First Silicon Debug

The Pain of Test Pattern Bring-up for First Silicon Debug
by Daniel Payne on 08-22-2018 at 7:00 am

In the semiconductor world we have divided our engineering talent up into many adjacent disciplines and each comes with their own job titles: Design engineers, Verification engineers, DFT engineers, Test engineers. When first silicon becomes available then everyone on the team, and especially management all have a few big … Read More


Networking trends for Automotive ADAS Systems

Networking trends for Automotive ADAS Systems
by Daniel Payne on 08-16-2018 at 12:00 pm

From my restaurant seat today in Lake Oswego, Oregon I watched as an SUV driver backed out and nearly collided with a parked car, so I wanted to wave my arms or start shouting to the driver to warn them about the collision. Cases like this are a daily occurrence to those of us who drive or watch other drivers on the road, so the promises of… Read More


Meeting Analog Reliability Challenges Across the Product Life Cycle

Meeting Analog Reliability Challenges Across the Product Life Cycle
by Daniel Payne on 08-14-2018 at 12:00 pm

Create a panel discussion about analog IC design and reliability and my curiosity is instantly piqued, so I attended a luncheon discussion at #55DAC moderated by Steven Lewis of Cadence. The panelists were quite deep in their specialized fields:… Read More


Cadence Update on AMS Design and Verification at #55DAC

Cadence Update on AMS Design and Verification at #55DAC
by Daniel Payne on 08-06-2018 at 12:00 pm

As a blogger in the EDA industry I get more invitations to meet with folks at DAC than I have time slots, so I have to be a bit selective in who I meet. When the folks at Cadence asked me to sit down and chat with Mladen Nizic I was intrigued because Mladen is so well-known in the AMS language area and he’s one of the authors of, The Mixed-SignalRead More


AMS Experts Share IC Design Stories at #55DAC

AMS Experts Share IC Design Stories at #55DAC
by Daniel Payne on 08-01-2018 at 7:00 am

At #55DAC in SFO the first day is always the busiest on the exhibit floor, so Monday by lunch time I was hungry and took a short walk to the Marriott hotel nearby to listen to AMS experts from several companies talk about their EDA tool use, hosted by Synopsys:

  • Samsung
  • Toshiba Memory Corp.
  • NVIDIA
  • Seagate
  • Numem
  • Esperanto
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Daniel’s #55DAC Trip Report

Daniel’s #55DAC Trip Report
by Daniel Payne on 07-29-2018 at 7:00 am

Another year, another DAC, and last month it was #55DAC in SFO and the first thing that I noticed was that the event was no longer located in the traditional North or South Halls, rather we were in the smaller, Moscone West on two floors, almost like a 3D FinFET. Checkin to get my badge was highly automated and oh so fast, well done.… Read More


Optimization and Reliability for FinFET designs at #55DAC

Optimization and Reliability for FinFET designs at #55DAC
by Daniel Payne on 07-25-2018 at 7:00 am

TSMC is the leading foundry worldwide and they make a big splash each year at the DAC exhibit and conference, so I stopped by their theatre area during the presentation from IP vendor Moortec to see what’s new this year. Stephen Crosher was the presenter from Moortec and we had exchanged emails before, so this was the first time… Read More


A New Kind of Analog EDA Company

A New Kind of Analog EDA Company
by Daniel Payne on 07-10-2018 at 12:00 pm

My IC design career started out with circuit design of DRAMS, so I got to quickly learn all about transistor-level design at the number one IDM in the world, Intel at the time. In the early days, circa 1978 we circuit designers actually had few EDA tools, mostly a SPICE circuit simulator followed by manual extraction, manual netlisting,… Read More


What to Expect from Methodics at DAC

What to Expect from Methodics at DAC
by Daniel Payne on 06-21-2018 at 12:00 pm

I’ve been visiting DAC for decades now, at first as an EDA vendor and since 2004 as a freelance EDA consultant. There’s always a buzz about what’s new, semiconductor industry trends, who is getting acquired and the latest commercial EDA and IP offerings. There’s so much vying for my attention at DAC each… Read More