DesignCon 2016 — signal integrity must be power-aware!

DesignCon 2016 — signal integrity must be power-aware!
by Tom Dillinger on 01-31-2016 at 6:00 pm

DesignCon is a unique conference — its tagline is “Where the Chip meets the Board”. Held each January in Santa Clara, the conference showcases a wealth of new technologies for advanced packaging, printed circuit board fabrication, connectors, cables, and related analysis equipment (e.g, BERT, VNA, scopes). Of specific… Read More


The “Era of the Photon” is here!

The “Era of the Photon” is here!
by Tom Dillinger on 01-02-2016 at 12:00 pm

The 50 year anniversary of the publication of Moore’s Law was recently celebrated, highlighting the tremendous advances in the Microelectronics Eraof the period in human history known as the Information Age. However, the technical and economic challenges currently faced by the microelectronics industry are bringing into… Read More


A Synergistic Chip-Package-System Analysis Methodology

A Synergistic Chip-Package-System Analysis Methodology
by Tom Dillinger on 12-23-2015 at 4:00 pm

Looking back, 2015 was a significant year for mergers and acquisitions in the EDA industry. The Semiwiki team maintains a chronology of major transactions here.

As I was reviewing this compendium, one of the entries that stands out is the acquisition of Apache Design Solutions by Ansys, Inc. a couple of years ago.

At that time, there… Read More


A (R)evolution in Hardware-based Simulation Acceleration

A (R)evolution in Hardware-based Simulation Acceleration
by Tom Dillinger on 11-16-2015 at 9:45 am

The most exciting products in our industry are those that are both evolutionary and revolutionary. Cadence has just announced an update to their hardware simulation acceleration platform – Palladium Z1 – which continues the evolution of the unique capabilities of processor-based acceleration, plus a revolutionary approach… Read More


Extendible Processor Architectures for IoT Applications

Extendible Processor Architectures for IoT Applications
by Tom Dillinger on 10-17-2015 at 7:00 am

The Internet of Things has become a ubiquitous term, to refer to a broad (and somewhat ill-defined) set of electronic products and potential applications – e.g., wearables, household appliances and controllers, medical applications, retail applications (signage, RFID), industrial automation, machine-to-machine communication,… Read More


Wafer-Level Chip-Scale Packaging Technology Challenges and Solutions

Wafer-Level Chip-Scale Packaging Technology Challenges and Solutions
by Tom Dillinger on 10-15-2015 at 7:00 am

At the recent TSMC OIP symposium, Bill Acito from Cadence and Chin-her Chien from TSMC provided an insightful presentation on their recent collaboration, to support TSMC’s Integrated FanOut (InFO) packaging solution. The chip and package implementation environments remain quite separate. The issues uncovered in bridging… Read More


Optimizing Quality-of-Service in a Network-on-Chip Architecture

Optimizing Quality-of-Service in a Network-on-Chip Architecture
by Tom Dillinger on 10-13-2015 at 12:00 pm

The Linley Group is well-known for their esteemed Microprocessor Report publication, now in its 28th year. Accompanying their repertoire of industry reports, TLG also sponsors regular conferences, highlighting the latest developments in processor architecture and implementation.

One of the highlights of the conference… Read More


Meeting DFM Challenges with Hierarchical Fill Data Insertion

Meeting DFM Challenges with Hierarchical Fill Data Insertion
by Tom Dillinger on 10-11-2015 at 12:00 pm

To describe the latest methodology for the addition of Design for Manufacturability fill shapes to design layout data, it’s appropriate to borrow a song title from Bob Dylan – The Times They Are A Changin’. The new technical requirements are best summarized as: “The goal is now to add as much fill as possible, which (ideally) looksRead More


A FinFET BSIM-CMG model update from UC-Berkeley

A FinFET BSIM-CMG model update from UC-Berkeley
by Tom Dillinger on 10-06-2015 at 4:00 pm

Every designer relies upon an underlying “compact” device model for circuit simulations – these models are the lifeblood of the IC industry. Designers may not be aware that there is an organization that qualifies models – the Compact Model Coalition – which operates under the umbrella of the Si2 Consortium: http://www.si2.org/cmc_index.phpRead More