The Mechanical Reliability of IC Packages

The Mechanical Reliability of IC Packages
by Daniel Payne on 01-31-2016 at 12:00 pm

At Intel back in the late 1970’s we were designing DRAM chips and mounting them in ceramic and plastic packages, however there were problems when some of the die would crack inside of the package because of thermal mismatch issues with how the die was attached to the heat spreader inside the package. Back then we really didn’t… Read More


Semiconductor IP Comes of Age

Semiconductor IP Comes of Age
by Daniel Payne on 01-14-2016 at 12:00 pm

I love reading about good news in the EDA and Semiconductor IP space, especially in light of the recent stock market trending downward in January. The best news that I’ve read in the past week is about the Q3 2015 revenue numbers collected by EDAC, because it shows that Semiconductor IP (SIP) surpassed CAE tool revenues for … Read More


Cycling Product Update from CES 2016

Cycling Product Update from CES 2016
by Daniel Payne on 01-11-2016 at 7:00 am

Cycling is part of the overall fitness industry which is enjoying a surge of new semiconductor-enabled devices to help us measure our progress, so at CES 2016 there’s plenty of activity on this front. I’ll highlight some of the more notable new product developments from the show.… Read More


Inventor of Netscape Looks at IoT

Inventor of Netscape Looks at IoT
by Daniel Payne on 01-04-2016 at 7:00 am

1995 was the year that a co-worker walked into my cubicle and said, “Hey, you have to see this new web browser and Internet thing.” I promptly installed Mosaic, later renamed Netscape, and began surfing the web with all of those interesting hyperlinks bringing me to new articles. Marc Andreessen was the mastermind … Read More


Tuning Analog IP for High Yield at SMIC

Tuning Analog IP for High Yield at SMIC
by Daniel Payne on 12-29-2015 at 12:00 pm

Analog IP is more difficult to design and optimize for a given process node compared to digital IP, so any automation for analog designers is always welcome. The engineers at SMIC in China have customers that design analog IP and often they need to know how to optimize it for a specific process, so I watched a presentation by Josh Yang,… Read More


Semiconductors and Conflict Minerals

Semiconductors and Conflict Minerals
by Daniel Payne on 12-21-2015 at 12:00 pm

Our semiconductor industry uses many different materials and chemicals in the production of chips, boards and electronic systems. But what should we do if the minerals like tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold are coming from the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where armed bandits are forcing workers against… Read More


Hyperloop: Faster Than the Shinkansen

Hyperloop: Faster Than the Shinkansen
by Daniel Payne on 12-17-2015 at 4:00 pm

In 1987 I made my first trip to Japan for business, then rode in my first high-speed train on the fabled Shinkansen (aka bullet train) traveling up to 200 mph on the way from Tokyo to Kyoto. Compared to the USA, our engineering friends in Japan have the most futuristic high-speed trains in the world. Today there’ s talk about another… Read More


Is That My Car on Fire?

Is That My Car on Fire?
by Daniel Payne on 12-14-2015 at 7:00 am

I was kind of shocked when the service manager at our local VW dealership told me that one of the wires in the ignition system of my wife’s New Beetle had started to overheat, melting the insulation and becoming a safety hazard. Why didn’t a fuze just blow, protecting the wiring from overheating? We decided to quickly … Read More


Design and Optimization of Analog IP is Possible

Design and Optimization of Analog IP is Possible
by Daniel Payne on 12-04-2015 at 7:00 am

Designing Analog IP is often referred to as a “black art”, something that only highly experienced craftsmen can produce using transistor-level techniques that aren’t shared outside of their closely held group of trusted co-workers. I’d like to suggest that Analog IP can be designed and optimized … Read More


Academia and TCAD Grow Closer

Academia and TCAD Grow Closer
by Daniel Payne on 12-02-2015 at 12:00 pm

On my first trip to Austria for EDA business I traveled by car from Germany, and I couldn’t wait to see how fast we would travel on the fabled Autobahn. Oddly enough it was summertime and the Autobahn was filled with vacationing families driving cars with shiny, aluminum campers in tow, so our car only traveled about 60 mph, nothing… Read More