Design For Manufacturing (DFM) is the art and science of making an IC design yield better in order to receive a higher ROI. Ian Smith, an AE from Mentor in the Calibre group presented a pertinent webinar, IP Scoring Using TSMC DFM Kits. I’ll provide an overview of what I learned at this webinar.… Read More
Author: Daniel Payne
FinFET Modeling and Extraction at 16-nm
In 2012 FinFET is one of the most talked about MOS technologies of the year because traditional planar CMOS has slowed down on scaling below the 28nm node. To learn more about FinFET process modeling I attended a Synopsys webinar where Bari Biswas presented for about 42 minutes include a Q&A portion at the end.
Bari Biswas, Synopsys… Read More
A Comparison of SemiWiki and DeepChip
An email update from John Cooley at DeepChip this morning prompted the bloggers here at SemiWiki to continue the discussion and point out incorrect data, so that readers realize what is really happening with our media portals as sources of timely and relevant news and opinion. I respect what John Cooley has done with DeepChip over… Read More
Schematic Capture and SPICE from Symica
At DAC in June I first blogged about Symicabecause they offered a Fast SPICE circuit simulator, and today I discovered a free version so I decided to write up a mini-review for you.… Read More
An FPGA Design Flow with Aldec Tools
I’ve used FPGA vendor-supplied tools from both Xilinxand Lattice Semibefore, so I wanted to see what EDA tools Aldec has to offer for FPGA design. I read the Aldecwhite paper, Corporate Standardization of FPGA Design Flow, and summarize what I found.… Read More
Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide: Design Management
I reviewed the book Mixed-Signal Methodology Guidein August of this year published by Cadence, and decided to follow up with one of the authors, Michael Henrie from ClioSoft, to learn more about the importance of Design Management for AMS. Michael is a Software Engineering Manager at ClioSoft and has worked at Zarlink Semi, Legerity,… Read More
Variation-Aware Design: A Hands-on Field Guide
IC designers using advanced nodes are acutely aware of how variation effects in the silicon itself are causing increased analysis and design efforts in order to yield chips at acceptable levels. Four authors from Solidoare so passionate about this topic that they combined their years of experience into a book that I had a chance… Read More
AMS IC Design at Rohde & Schwarz
I met Frank Wiedmann on LinkedIn because we are both members of the Analog Mixed Signal group, and he has an interesting background in AMS IC design.
Since he lives in Munich we conducted our interview by email.… Read More
ASIC Prototyping: Dini Group and Tektronix
Collaboration in EDA is nothing new, however you may not be aware of how the Dini Group and Tektronix have worked together on an FPGA prototyping platform to address issues like debugging with full visibility across an entire multi-FPGA design. At SemiWiki we’ve blogged a couple of times so far about the new debug approach… Read More
Internet of Things, My Bluetooth Headset
A catchy phrase used by bloggers and journalists these days is “Internet of Things“, or IoT if you prefer acronyms. All of this is made possible by EDA tools in the hands of SoC designers to create useful products like my Jawbone ICON bluetooth headset. Tonight I discovered that I could customize my bluetooth headset… Read More
Selling the Forges of the Future: U.S. Report Exposes China’s Reliance on Western Chip Tools