Variation: How Can We Survive?

Variation: How Can We Survive?
by Paul McLellan on 12-24-2014 at 12:57 pm

At IEDM last week Coventor hosted a panel session as they do each year. The theme this year was surviving variation. The panel was hosted by someone whose name is familiar round here, Dan Nenni. The panel that Coventor had put together had people from all sorts of different slots in the design/supply chain for semiconductor. Unfortunately… Read More


Kathryn Kranen at IEDM

Kathryn Kranen at IEDM
by Paul McLellan on 12-23-2014 at 7:00 am

It is the 50th year of IEDM, the International Electron Devices Meeting. The fact that it has been going for so long reveals why it has such an odd name: back in 1964 most “electron devices” were tubes (valves in UK lingo). This year they gave all of us a USB stick with all the papers from all 50 years of the event, something… Read More


Components for Wearables, Making the IoT Real

Components for Wearables, Making the IoT Real
by Paul McLellan on 12-22-2014 at 4:12 pm

The screenwriter William Goldman is famous for saying that in Hollywood “Nobody knows anything.” Meaning that there is simply no way for any of the people involved to be able to predict which movies will turn out to be hits and which will be flops. I think the internet of things (IoT) is going to be like that. There will … Read More


A Brief History of Silicon Frontline

A Brief History of Silicon Frontline
by Paul McLellan on 12-19-2014 at 7:00 am

Silicon Frontline was founded in 2007 by Yuri Feinberg. Since then the company has built up a team with expertise in computational geometry, circuit layout, circuit simulation and analysis, and post-layout verification. After a small initial funding, Silicon Frontline has continued to grow, acquiring new customers even over… Read More


ASIC Days Are Here Again

ASIC Days Are Here Again
by Paul McLellan on 12-18-2014 at 7:00 am

Technology often goes in cycles. Thirty years ago the dominant mode of computing was a shared computing resource with comparatively dumb terminals. Think of a Vax accessed by terminals. Then workstations and the PC came along and the dominant mode became a computer on everyone’s desk. Then the smartphone came along and … Read More


IEDM: TSMC, Intel and IBM 14/16nm Processes

IEDM: TSMC, Intel and IBM 14/16nm Processes
by Paul McLellan on 12-16-2014 at 7:10 am

This week is IEDM. Three of the presentations today were by TSMC, Intel and IBM going over some of the details of their 14/16nm processes. They don’t provide the slides at IEDM, just the single page papers so this may end up being a somewhat random collection of facts.

TSMC were up first. They talked about the improvements that… Read More


Jean-Louis Gassée on Intel and Mobile

Jean-Louis Gassée on Intel and Mobile
by Paul McLellan on 12-15-2014 at 7:10 am

I came across a very interesting article/blog written over the weekend by Jean-Louis Gassée on Intel and mobile. It covers some similar ground to several of my blog posts on the topic but also has some new facts. And it has additional credibility since Jean-Louis was head of product development and worldwide marketing at Apple (pre-iPhone).… Read More


Will 3DIC Ever Be Cheap Enough for High Volume Products?

Will 3DIC Ever Be Cheap Enough for High Volume Products?
by Paul McLellan on 12-12-2014 at 8:00 pm

More news from the 3DASIP conference. Chet Palesko of SavanSys Solution had an interesting presentation with the same title as this blog (although this blog draws from several other presentations too). Chet took a look at what aspects of 3D are likely to get cheaper going forward. He took as a starting point that stuff that is not … Read More


3D, The State of the State

3D, The State of the State
by Paul McLellan on 12-11-2014 at 8:00 am

I have been at the 3D ASIP conference that is held every year in Burlingame. It is far and away the best place to get a snapshot on what is going on in 3D (and 2.5D) IC design each year. One of the presentations was by the guys from Yole on where the industry is right now. Other presentations were on pathfinding, power reduction (did you know… Read More


TSMC Gets Ready for IoT

TSMC Gets Ready for IoT
by Paul McLellan on 12-10-2014 at 11:36 am

With all the talk about 14/16nm and 10nm it is important to realize that older processes are still important. Eventually 16nm may end up being cheaper than 28nm but for the time being 28nm seems to be a sort of sweet spot, not just cheaper than every process that came before it (which was true for every new node) but also cheaper than every… Read More