Shakeup at Mentor Graphics

Shakeup at Mentor Graphics
by Daniel Payne on 05-12-2011 at 12:22 pm

Reading the title you guessed it right, Mentor Graphics has three new board members today from the slate offered by billionaire activist Carl Icahn:

  • José Maria Alapont, chief executive of the auto parts maker Federal-Mogul
  • Gary Meyers, a director of the chip maker Exar
  • David Schechter, an executive at Mr. Icahn’s investment firm
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Two New Platforms for Systems Designers

Two New Platforms for Systems Designers
by Daniel Payne on 05-03-2011 at 7:03 pm

Introduction
Today Cadence announced at the Embedded Systems Conference something of interest to systems designers.

What’s New?
The Rapid Prototyping Platform and Virtual System Platform are what’s new, and they intend to enable and automate concurrent hardware and software development. I can remember Mentor… Read More


Graphical DRC vs Text-based DRC

Graphical DRC vs Text-based DRC
by Daniel Payne on 05-01-2011 at 11:42 am

Introduction
IC designs go through a layout process and then a verification of that layout to determine if the layout layer width and spacing rules conform to a set of manufacturing design rules. Adhering to the layout rules will ensure that your chip has acceptable yields.

At the 28nm node a typical DRC (Design Rule Check) deck will… Read More


How Avnera uses Hardware Configuration Management with Virtuoso IC Tools

How Avnera uses Hardware Configuration Management with Virtuoso IC Tools
by Daniel Payne on 04-21-2011 at 12:12 pm

Introduction
Here in the Silicon Forest (Oregon) we have a venture-backed, fabless analog semi company called Avnera that has designed over 10 Analog System on Chips (ASoC). Their chips are used in consumer products for both wireless audio and video applications.

 

James Rollins is the director of physical design at Avnera… Read More


Transistor-Level Electrical Rule Checking

Transistor-Level Electrical Rule Checking
by Daniel Payne on 04-20-2011 at 11:19 am

Introduction
Circuit designers work at the transistor level and strive to get the ultimate in performance, layout density or low power by creating crafty circuit topologies in both schematics and layout. Along with this quest comes the daunting task of verifying that all of your rules and best practices about reliability have… Read More


Who Needs a 3D Field Solver for IC Design?

Who Needs a 3D Field Solver for IC Design?
by Daniel Payne on 04-07-2011 at 4:53 pm

Inroduction
In the early days we made paper plots of an IC layout then measured the width and length of interconnect segments with a ruler to add up all of the squares, then multiplied by the resistance per square. It was tedious, error prone and took way too much time, but we were rewarded with accurate parasitic values for our SPICE… Read More


DRC/DFM inside of Place and Route

DRC/DFM inside of Place and Route
by Daniel Payne on 03-31-2011 at 10:19 am

Intro
Earlier this month I drove to Mentor Graphics in Wilsonville, Oregon and spoke with Michael Buehler-Garcia, Director of Marketing and Nancy Nguyen, TME, both part of the Calibre Design to Silicon Division. I’m a big fan of correct-by-construction thinking in EDA tools and what they had to say immediately caught my… Read More


Hardware Configuration Management and why it’s different than Software Configuration Management

Hardware Configuration Management and why it’s different than Software Configuration Management
by Daniel Payne on 03-23-2011 at 2:51 pm

Intro
On Friday I talked with Srinath Anantharaman by phone to gain some perspective on Hardware Configuration Management (HCM) versus Software Configuration Management (SCM), especially as it applies to the IC design flows in use today. In the 1990’s we both worked at Viewlogic in Fremont, CA and in 1997 Srinath founded… Read More


Getting Real Time Calibre DRC Results

Getting Real Time Calibre DRC Results
by Daniel Payne on 03-10-2011 at 10:00 am

Last week I met with Joseph Davis, Ph.D. at Mentor Graphics in Wilsonville, Oregon to learn about a new product designed for full-custom IC layout designers to improve productivity.

The traditional flow for full-custom IC layout designers has been nearly unchanged for decades:

  • Read a schematic or use Schematic Driven Layout
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Custom and AMS Design

Custom and AMS Design
by Daniel Payne on 02-21-2011 at 10:06 pm

Samsung%203DIC%20Roadmap

For IC designers creating full-custom or AMS designs there are plenty of challenges to getting designs done right on the first spin of silicon. Let me give you a sneak peek into what’s being discussed at the EDA Tech Forum in Santa Clara, CA on March 10th that will be of special interest to you:

3D TSV (Through Silicon Vias) are… Read More