Are Standard Cell Libs, Memories and Mixed-signal IP Availabe at 7nm FF?

Are Standard Cell Libs, Memories and Mixed-signal IP Availabe at 7nm FF?
by Eric Esteve on 05-05-2016 at 7:00 am

More than 500 designers (562) have responded to a survey made in 2015 by Synopsys. Answering to the question “What is the fastest clock speed of your design?” 56% have mentioned a clock higher than 500 MHz (and still 40% higher than 1 GHz). If you compare with the results obtained 10 years ago, the largest proportion of answers was for… Read More


No reason for FD-SOI Roadmap to follow Moore’s law!

No reason for FD-SOI Roadmap to follow Moore’s law!
by Eric Esteve on 04-26-2016 at 4:00 pm

We in Semiwiki are writing about FD-SOI since 2012, describing all the benefits offered by the technology in term of power consumption, price per performance compared with FinFET, etc. Let me assess again that I am fully convinced that FD-SOI is a very smart and efficient way to escape from the Moore’s law paradox: the transistor… Read More


Top Mobile OEM Uses NetSpeed to Boost Its Next Gen Application Processor

Top Mobile OEM Uses NetSpeed to Boost Its Next Gen Application Processor
by Eric Esteve on 04-20-2016 at 12:00 pm

The smartphone segment is certainly the most competitive market for chip makers today and the yearly product launch cadence puts a lot of pressure on the application processor design cycle. End-users expect to benefit from higher image definition, better sound quality, ever faster and more complex applications which push the… Read More


EDAC Name Changing for ESDA, but what about IP ?

EDAC Name Changing for ESDA, but what about IP ?
by Eric Esteve on 04-14-2016 at 7:00 am

The EDA Consortium (EDAC) has changed name for Electronic Systems Design Alliance (ESD Alliance). That’s a good reminder that IC are developed (thanks to Design Automation) to be integrated into a System. A wide design ecosystem support system development, including embedded software, design intellectual property (IP), … Read More


Who will provide data center Soc of the future, Intel or Qualcomm ?

Who will provide data center Soc of the future, Intel or Qualcomm ?
by Eric Esteve on 03-29-2016 at 4:00 pm

Intel has been incredibly successful by designing high performance server SoC to address the data center market segment, and the chance to see the company loosing large market share is pretty low, at least in the short term. Now, if we look at the really long term, 2030 or even 2040, like did the Semiconductor Industry Association… Read More


Webinar: Design a LTE-based M2M Asset Tracker SoC with CEVA, using GNSS and OTDOA

Webinar: Design a LTE-based M2M Asset Tracker SoC with CEVA, using GNSS and OTDOA
by Eric Esteve on 03-27-2016 at 7:00 am

If you could not attend live to the webinar from CEVA “Lear how to design a LTE-based M2M Asset Tracker SoC”, you have a second chance to access it remotely and to learn a lot. You will learn about CEVA’ Dragonfly platform 1 or 2, based on CEVA-XC8 or CEVA-XC5, and you will discover how mobile Machine 2 Machine (M2M) devices developed … Read More


Can you really address the Automotive market with AP designed for smartphone?

Can you really address the Automotive market with AP designed for smartphone?
by Eric Esteve on 03-16-2016 at 7:00 am

If you remember, when TI decided to exit the booming wireless segment in 2012, the company decided to re-focus their application processor product line (OMAP) initially developed for smartphone “to a broader market including industrial clients like carmakers”. Being a TI employee in the 90’s in south of France, where TI has started… Read More


Is Smart Bluetooth de facto standard for IoT Wearable, Beacons, Fitness and Health ?

Is Smart Bluetooth de facto standard for IoT Wearable, Beacons, Fitness and Health ?
by Eric Esteve on 03-13-2016 at 7:00 am

Synopsys launch BTLE PHY IP, qualified by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and meeting compliance with the Bluetooth® Smart v4.2 specification. The company has built a partnership with Mindtree to provide a complete solution, integrating Synopsys’ Bluetooth Smart PHY IP and Mindtree’s production-proven BlueLitE… Read More


Webinar from CEVA: Machine Type Communication

Webinar from CEVA: Machine Type Communication
by Eric Esteve on 03-07-2016 at 7:00 am

By 2020, ABI Research predicts that there will be more than 45 billion connected devices worldwide. More than half of these devices will incorporate multiple standards in the same device, such as Wi-Fi, 802.15.4g, GNSS and cellular communications.

This webinar will address the question: How To Design a LTE-Based M2M Asset TrackerRead More


Should terrorists prefer iPhone (thanks to privacy)?

Should terrorists prefer iPhone (thanks to privacy)?
by Eric Esteve on 02-23-2016 at 10:00 am

The case between Apple and the FBI may not be as limpid as it could be. If you ask me if Apple, or any US or Europe based supplier of high tech system should help the FBI (or any similar organization) and provide the technical support needed to extract information belonging to a terrorist, my answer would be definitely YES.

I don’t know… Read More