Recently, Sonics and ARM entered into an agreement whereby ARM licensed a significant portion of Sonics’ patent portfolio. Sonics, Inc. is one of the leading providers of connectivity IP often referred to as network-on-chip, or NoC. ARM is the leading provider of processor intellectual property (IP). The potential scope… Read More
Author: Randy Smith
Sonics-ARM Form A Potent IP Combination
Costello and Hogan Rock the House at Cadence EDAC ECC Event
No one who spent much time at Cadence during Joe Costello‘s reign as CEO (1987-1997, including SDA) could likely give an unbiased review of last night’s event, EDAC – Jim Hogan Emerging Companies Series. The event was held at Cadence’s 5-story Building 10, a building that had not yet been built while Joe… Read More
Reduce Errors in Multi-threaded Designs
Many advanced algorithmic IPs are described in C++. We use this language because of its flexibility. Of course software algorithms are written to be executed on processors so they don’t solve all the issues of getting the algorithm implemented in hardware directly. This is not simply a high-level synthesis (HLS) issue. Usually… Read More
Properly Handing Of Clock Tree Synthesis Specifications
Given today’s design requirements with respect to low power, there is increasing focus on the contribution to total power made by a design’s clock trees. The design decisions made by the front-end team to achieve high performance without wasting power must be conveyed to back-end team. This hand-off must be accurate… Read More
Forte Rises
Over the past few months there has been a bit of back-and-forth concerning the 2012 market data indicating that Forte Designs Systems had taken over the top spot (by revenue) in the high-level synthesis (HLS) market (see stories hereand here). Having worked in this segment for Synfora as VP of Marketing, and as a consultant to AutoESL,… Read More
DVCon 2013 – Hope For EDA Trade Shows
Those of us who spend a lot of time at EDA marketing events cannot help but notice the dramatic shrinking of the floor space, and to some extent attendance, at the major EDA shows such as DAC and DATE. DAC used to occupy both the north and south halls of Moscone Center when in San Francisco, but now only takes up one hall. So, I did not have… Read More
Who Allegedly Broke Tela’s Patents: Is Samsung or Qualcomm the Real Villain?
I recently blogged about the actions filed by Tela Innovations at both the US International Trade Commission (USITC) and in federal district court. Those actions allege that five mobile phone manufacturers -HTC, LG, Motorola Mobility, Pantech, and Nokia – were importing handsets into the US which infringed on seven of… Read More
Why IP Must Be Defended
A few years ago I was having breakfast with Jim Hogan at our favorite place to meet in Los Gatos. I was CEO of Polyteda and Jim was Chairman so we always had plenty to talk about. This time, however, the talk had turned to protecting a company’s intellectual property (IP). Jim had brought up the topic in the context of the looming legal … Read More
Yawn… New EDA Leader Results Are Coming
We will soon start to see the quarterly financial reporting installments of the “Big 3” public EDA companies. I predict they will be as boring as usual. I am not sure if I would want it any differently though.
Back in the 90s there were times when it was truly interesting to wait to see what Cadence, Mentor, or later Synopsys, might announce.… Read More
Apple’s Next Threat
It seems only appropriate that at the beginning of the year we should look at who is going to be the next significant threat to Apple’s profitability machine. During Apple’s meteoric rise over the past 9 years (APPL share price: Jan-2004 @ $11 vs. Jan-2013 @ $550) different companies have been put up as Apple’s next significant threat… Read More
The Data Crisis is Unfolding – Are We Ready?