DesignCon has grown over the years to become a true system design show. The show’s tagline is WHERE THE CHIP MEETS TO BOARD. This is just the beginning. Besides the chip and the board there are all the challenges, opportunities, and options to get signals reliably propagated throughout the entire system. Power, signal integrity,… Read More
Author: Mike Gianfagna
TSMC Explains the Fourth Era of Semiconductor – It’s All About Collaboration
The 32nd VLSI Design/CAD Symposium just occurred in a virtual setting. The theme of the event this year was “ICs Powering Smart Life Innovation”. There were many excellent presentations across analog & RF, EDA & testing, digital & system, and emerging technology. There were also some excellent keynotes, and this… Read More
Is EDA Growth Unstoppable?
SemiWiki has covered the Q2, Q3 and Q4 ESD Alliance quarterly revenue reports previously. The Q2 2020 report suggested that EDA had COVID immunity. The Q3 2020 report inspired an Up and to the Right comment. The Q4 2020 report demanded a Juggernaut label. And now the Q1 2021 report posts yet more record-breaking growth. This is … Read More
Get a Jump-Start on Your Next IoT Design with Sondrel’s SFA 100
The concept of platform-based design has been around a long time. I can recall Nokia’s early cell phone products used the strategy very effectively. They were able to turn out new phones quickly by leveraging their existing chip design as a baseline on which to add features. This is commonplace today but was innovative at that time.… Read More
When Implementing 112G PAM4 Channels, Getting There is Half the Fun
The slogan in the title of this post originated with the cruise ship industry in the 1950s. The comment resonated then, and it continues to do so now. In a different context of course. Consider the substantial pressure for higher bandwidth channels. 5G has lit the fuse on a massive increase in wireless data volumes. IoT, autonomous… Read More
Achieving Scalability Means No More Silos
This is a story of contrasts and counter-intuitive results. Perforce recently published a white paper discussing enterprise scalability – what it takes, why it’s important and what can get in the way. The discussion will shake up some long-held notions regarding effective project management. The results can be significant,… Read More
Silicon Catalyst and Cornell University Are Expanding Opportunities for Startups Like Geegah
SemiWiki has covered many aspects of Silicon Catalyst, from their business model to notable industry events and profiles of promising startups. You can get some perspective on the breadth and depth of Silicon Catalyst here. In this post, I’ll explore an aspect of the broader collaboration the organization is engaging in. It is… Read More
Alchip is Painting a Bright Future for the ASIC Market
I’ve spent most of my career in the ASIC business. In 2003, Gartner predicted the ASIC market would grow to $16.9B. During that time, there were a number of startups building ASICs, but the applications were a bit specialized and aimed at new markets. Consequently, there was a lot of risk to build a chip startup and many ASICs either… Read More
Data Orchestration Hardware Unlocks the Full Potential of AI
We all know that artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are fundamentally changing the world. From the smart devices that gather data to the hyperscale data centers that analyze it, the impact of AI/ML can be felt almost everywhere. It is also well-known that hardware accelerators have opened the door to real-time… Read More
WEBINAR: 5 Reasons Why a High Performance Reconfigurable SmartNIC Demands a 2D NoC
If you are involved in designing systems that process data, you’re going to want to attend this webinar. Practically speaking, this should include a large percentage of the SemiWiki readership. Since data is the new oil there are a lot of applications drawn to data and information processing. Before we explore this webinar, let’s… Read More
Unlocking the cloud: A new era for post-tapeout flow for semiconductor manufacturing