IC Design Management: Build or Buy?

IC Design Management: Build or Buy?
by Daniel Payne on 11-17-2016 at 12:00 pm

When I first started doing circuit design with Intel at the transistor level back in the late 1970’s we had exactly two EDA tools at our disposal: an internally developed SPICE circuit simulator, and a commercial IC layout system. Over the years at Intel the internal CAD group added many more automation tools: gate level simulator,… Read More


System-level Design for IoT and Automotive

System-level Design for IoT and Automotive
by Daniel Payne on 11-08-2016 at 12:00 pm

Several years ago a former EDA co-worker went to work for MathWorks, so I started paying a lot more attention to this privately held company that is well known for the MATLAB language and analysis environment. Engineers at MathWorks have created a graphical environment called Simulink for both simulation and model-based design… Read More


IoT From SEMI Meeting: EDA, Image Sensors, MEMS

IoT From SEMI Meeting: EDA, Image Sensors, MEMS
by Daniel Payne on 11-01-2016 at 12:00 pm

Last Friday I learned something new about IoT by attending a SEMI event in Wilsonville, OR just a few short miles away from where I live in Tualatin. SEMI puts on two events here in Oregon each year, and their latest event on IoT Sensors was quite timely and popular judging by how many attendees showed up. First up was Jeff Miller from … Read More


Is That PDK Safe to Use Yet?

Is That PDK Safe to Use Yet?
by Daniel Payne on 10-28-2016 at 12:00 pm

In our semiconductor ecosystem we have foundries on one side supplying all of that amazing silicon technology, and IC designers on the other side that take their system ideas then go implement them in a SoC using a specific foundry. The required interface between foundry and chip designers has been the Process Design Kit (PDK), … Read More


DFT Approaches for Giga-gate SoC Designs

DFT Approaches for Giga-gate SoC Designs
by Daniel Payne on 10-26-2016 at 12:00 pm

In the early days of IC design there were arguments against using any extra transistors or gates for testability purposes, because that would be adding extra silicon area which in turn would drive up the costs of the chip and product. Today we are older and wiser, realizing that there are product pricing benefits to quickly test each… Read More


Making your AMS Simulators Faster (webinar)

Making your AMS Simulators Faster (webinar)
by Daniel Payne on 10-24-2016 at 12:00 pm

I’ve been following Cadence Design Systems ever since it was formed in 1988 by the merger of SDA Systems and ECAD, Inc. At that time I was working at Silicon Compiler Systems, soon to be acquired by Mentor Graphics. ClioSoft is another company that I’ve known about for several years now, mostly for their design management… Read More


Achieving Lower Power through RTL Design Restructuring (webinar)

Achieving Lower Power through RTL Design Restructuring (webinar)
by Daniel Payne on 10-18-2016 at 4:00 pm

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From a consumer viewpoint I want the longest battery life from my electronic devices: iPad tablet, Galaxy Note 4 smart phone, Garmin Edge 820 bike computer, and Amazon Kindle book reader. In September I blogged about RTL Design Restructuring and how it could help achieve lower power, and this month I’m looking forward to … Read More


Circuit Simulation Videos Show How To

Circuit Simulation Videos Show How To
by Daniel Payne on 10-13-2016 at 4:00 pm

One of the things that I miss most about attending trade shows like DAC in the old days was that you actually got to see EDA tools being demonstrated live in the exhibit area. You could see what the GUI looked like, how the dialogs worked, and learn what kind of control you could have during analysis. Most of what you see today at DAC in the… Read More


Drift is a Bad Thing for SPICE Circuit Simulators

Drift is a Bad Thing for SPICE Circuit Simulators
by Daniel Payne on 10-07-2016 at 12:00 pm

My first job out of college was with Intel, located in Aloha, Oregon and I did circuit simulations using a proprietary SPICE circuit simulator called ASPEC that was maintained in-house. While doing some circuit simulations one day I noticed that an internal node in one of my circuits was gradually getting higher and higher, even… Read More


Why is Low Frequency Noise Measurement for ICs Such a Big Deal?

Why is Low Frequency Noise Measurement for ICs Such a Big Deal?
by Daniel Payne on 09-27-2016 at 12:00 pm

Even digital designers need to be aware of how noise impacts their circuits because most clocked designs today use a Phase Locked Loop (PLL) block which contains a circuit called a Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) that is quite sensitive in operation to the effects of noise and process variation. As process node scaling continues… Read More