Learning about MEMS in Israel from: EDA companies, Foundry, University, Users

Learning about MEMS in Israel from: EDA companies, Foundry, University, Users
by Daniel Payne on 10-23-2012 at 12:24 pm

In April I attended and blogged about a webinar on MEMS and IC co-design hosted by two EDA companies: SoftMEMS and Tanner EDA. On October 30th you can attend a full-day event in Israel that is more comprehensive than the webinar that I attended.… Read More


A Brief History of Aldec

A Brief History of Aldec
by Daniel Payne on 10-20-2012 at 5:31 pm

Dr. Stanley Hyduke founded Aldecin 1984 and their first product was delivered in 1985, named SUSIE (Standard Universal Simulator for Improved Engineering), a gate-level, DOS-based simulator. The SUSIE simulator was priced lower than other EDA vendor tools from the big three: Daisy, Mentor and Valid (aka DMV). Aldec maintains… Read More


Designing with FinFETs

Designing with FinFETs
by Daniel Payne on 10-08-2012 at 6:13 pm

Intel is the number one semiconductor company in the world and has taken the lead in bringing FinFET (aka Tri-Gate) silicon to market at the 22nm node starting in May 2011, so now we see the pure play foundries playing catch-up and start talking about their own FinFET roadmaps. IC designers and layout engineers want to know how their… Read More


EDA User: Rafaela Novais from TowerJazz Semi

EDA User: Rafaela Novais from TowerJazz Semi
by Daniel Payne on 10-04-2012 at 8:10 pm

While reading an article on DeepChip I found an interesting comment from Rafaela Novais, a Design Support Manager at TowerJazz Semi and decided to interview her to learn more about her experience as an IC designer and EDA tool user.

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EDA Solutions at Ultra Low Power Developer Forum Demonstrates Mixed-Signal Flow including Tools from Tanner EDA, Incentia and Aldec

EDA Solutions at Ultra Low Power Developer Forum Demonstrates Mixed-Signal Flow including Tools from Tanner EDA, Incentia and Aldec
by Daniel Payne on 10-04-2012 at 4:49 pm

EDA Solutions, sole representative in Europe for Tanner EDA and Incentia Design Systems, is exhibiting at the ‘Design & Elektronik’ Developer Forum on Ultra Low Power in Munich, Germany, on October 10, 2012, at the Holiday Inn (Munich – City Centre).

EDA Solutions will be presenting its complete analog, digital and… Read More


High Frequency Analysis of IC Layouts

High Frequency Analysis of IC Layouts
by Daniel Payne on 10-03-2012 at 12:26 pm

IC designers of passive devices often use empirical approaches to perform High Frequency Analysis (HFA), however there is at least one new approach being offered by Mentor Graphics using a tool flow of:

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User Review: iOS 6 on iPad

User Review: iOS 6 on iPad
by Daniel Payne on 10-01-2012 at 11:11 am

Much has been written about the new iPhone 5 and iOS 6 in terms of the features, specifications, bill of materials, and chips used in the design. Today I’ll share my experiences of actually using the new iOS 6 on iPad as an EDA blogger.

Upgrading to iOS6
Clicking the On button and noticing that the App Store icon has something new,… Read More


A Brief History of RTL Design

A Brief History of RTL Design
by Daniel Payne on 09-27-2012 at 9:00 pm

300px Register transfer level   example toggler.svg

RTL is an acronym for Register Transfer Level and refers to a level of hardware design abstraction using Registers and logic gates. Here’s an example schematic showing one DFF as a register, and one inverter as a logic gate.


Figure 1: RTL diagram of a DFF (D Flip Flop) and InverterRead More