Cadence Defines a New Signoff Paradigm with Tempus PI

Cadence Defines a New Signoff Paradigm with Tempus PI
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-20-2020 at 10:00 am

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Semiconductor technology advances have a way of rewriting the rule book. As process geometries shrink, subtle effects graduate to mainstream problems. Performance curves can become inverted. And no matter what else occurs, low power demands are constantly reducing voltage and design margins along with it. Sometimes these… Read More


Mentor Cuts Circuit Verification Time with Unique Recon Technology

Mentor Cuts Circuit Verification Time with Unique Recon Technology
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-17-2020 at 6:00 am

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Most of us will remember the productivity boost that hierarchical analysis provided vs. analyzing a chip flat. This “divide and conquer” approach has worked well for all kinds of designs for many years. But, as technology advances tend to do, the bar is moving again. The new challenges are rooted in the iterative nature of high complexity… Read More


A tour of Cliosoft’s participation at DAC 2020 with Simon Rance

A tour of Cliosoft’s participation at DAC 2020 with Simon Rance
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-15-2020 at 10:00 am

Simon Rance

As chip complexity grows, so does the need for a well-thought-out design data management strategy.  This is a hot area, and Cliosoft is in the middle of it.  When I was at eSilicon, we used Cliosoft technology to manage the design and layout of high-performance analog designs across widely separated design teams. The tool worked… Read More


Ansys Multiphysics Platform Tackles Power Management ICs

Ansys Multiphysics Platform Tackles Power Management ICs
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-14-2020 at 10:00 am

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Ansys addresses complex Multiphysics simulation and analysis tasks, from device to chip to package and system. When I was at eSilicon we did a lot of work on 2.5D packaging and I can tell you tools from Ansys were a critical enabler to get the chip, package and system to all work correctly.

Ansys recently published an Application Brief… Read More


A Tour of This Year’s DAC IP Track with Randy Fish

A Tour of This Year’s DAC IP Track with Randy Fish
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-10-2020 at 10:00 am

Randy Fish

DAC is a complex event with many “moving parts”. While the conference has gone virtual this year (as all events have), the depth of the event remains the same. The technical program has always been of top quality, with peer-reviewed papers presented across many topics and across the world. This is also the oldest part of DAC, dating… Read More


Siemens Acquires UltraSoC to Drive Design for Silicon Lifecycle Management

Siemens Acquires UltraSoC to Drive Design for Silicon Lifecycle Management
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-07-2020 at 10:00 am

Some Key Executives from UltraSoC

As reported recently by Dan Nenni, Siemens has signed an agreement to acquire Cambridge, UK-based UltraSoC Technologies Ltd. We’ve all seen plenty of mergers and acquisitions in EDA.  Some transactions perform better than others. The best ones enhance an existing product or service by blending non-overlapping technologies.… Read More


The Future of Chip Design with the Cadence iSpatial Flow

The Future of Chip Design with the Cadence iSpatial Flow
by Mike Gianfagna on 07-06-2020 at 10:00 am

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A few months ago, I wrote about the announcement of a new digital full flow from Cadence. In that piece, I focused on the machine learning (ML) aspects of the new tool. I had covered a discussion with Cadence’s Paul Cunningham a week before that explored ML in Cadence products, so it was timely to dive into a real-world example of the … Read More


How to Grow with Poise and Grace, a Tale of Scalability from ClioSoft

How to Grow with Poise and Grace, a Tale of Scalability from ClioSoft
by Mike Gianfagna on 06-23-2020 at 10:00 am

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ClioSoft published a white paper recently entitled Best Practices are the Foundations of a Startup. The piece discusses the needs and challenges associated with building a scalable infrastructure to support growth.

Before I get into more details on ClioSoft’s white paper, I would offer my own experience on this topic – the need… Read More


Seeing is Believing, the Benefits of Delta’s Low-Resolution Vision Chip

Seeing is Believing, the Benefits of Delta’s Low-Resolution Vision Chip
by Mike Gianfagna on 06-22-2020 at 6:00 am

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Presto Engineering recently held a webinar discussing vision chip technology – what a vision chip is, what are the applications and how can you optimize its use.  Samer Ismail, a design engineer at Presto Engineering with deep domain expertise in vision chip technology was the presenter.  Samer takes you on a very informative … Read More


Cadence Adds “Always On” to vManager Verification Management with Distributed and Cloud Access

Cadence Adds “Always On” to vManager Verification Management with Distributed and Cloud Access
by Mike Gianfagna on 06-17-2020 at 10:00 am

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Cadence vManager™ Verification Management provides what the company describes as metric-driven signoff. Anyone who has been through the tapeout process for a complex SoC knows the perils of verification sign-off. How much of the chip has been verified?  What’s left to do? Will all be ready when the tapeout deadline arrives? … Read More