The user group events held by EDA companies offer a unique opportunity to hear from designers and CAD engineers who are actually using the EDA tools “in the trenches”. Some user presentations are pretty straightforward – e.g., providing a quality-of-results (QoR) design comparison when invoking a new tool feature added to a recent… Read More
Author: Tom Dillinger
Advanced Materials and New Architectures for AI Applications
Over the past 50 years in our industry, there have been three invariant principles:
- Moore’s Law drives the pace of Si technology scaling
- system memory utilizes MOS devices (for SRAM and DRAM)
- computation relies upon the “von Neumann” architecture
Avionics and Embedded FPGA IP
The design of electronic systems for aerospace applications shares many of the same constraints as apply to consumer products – e.g., cost (including NRE), power dissipation, size, time-to-market. Both market segments are driven to leverage the integration benefits of process scaling. … Read More
Top 10 Highlights from the TSMC Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum
Each year, TSMC hosts two major events for customers – the Technology Symposium in the spring, and the Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum in the fall. The Technology Symposium provides updates from TSMC on:
… Read More
Neural Network Efficiency with Embedded FPGA’s
The traditional metrics for evaluating IP are performance, power, and area, commonly abbreviated as PPA. Viewed independently, PPA measures can be difficult to assess. As an example, design constraints that are purely based on performance, without concern for the associated power dissipation and circuit area, are increasingly… Read More
Analytics and Visualization for Big Data Chip Analysis
Designers require comprehensive logical, physical, and electrical models to interpret the results of full-chip power noise and electromigration analysis flows, and subsequently deduce the appropriate design updates to address any analysis issues. These models include: LEF, DEF, Liberty library models (including detailed… Read More
An update on the Design Productivity Gap
Over a decade ago, a group of semiconductor industry experts published a landmark paper as part of the periodic updates to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, or ITRS for short (link). The ITRS identified a critical design productivity gap. The circuit capacity afforded by the Moore’s Law pace of technology… Read More
Accelerating the PCB Design-Analysis Optimization Loop
With the increasing complexity and diversity of the mechanical constraints and electrical requirements in electronic product development, printed circuit board designers are faced with a number of difficult challenges:
- generating accurate (S-parameter) simulation models for critical interface elements of the design
1-on-1 with Anirudh Devgan, President, Cadence
At the Design Automation Conference, no one is busier than an EDA company executive — conference panels, product launch briefings, customer meetings, and corporate dinners all place considerable demands on their time. I was fortunate enough to be able to meet with Anirudh Devgan, President of Cadence, at the recent DAC55 in San… Read More
Autonomous Driving and Functional Safety
The timelines proposed by automobile manufacturers for enabling fully autonomous driving are extremely aggressive. At the recent DAC55 conference in San Francisco, I attended a panel discussion on Functional Safety issues for assisted and autonomous driving, sponsored by Mentor Graphics. I also had the opportunity to chat… Read More
More Headwinds – CHIPS Act Chop? – Chip Equip Re-Shore? Orders Canceled & Fab Delay