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


Top 10 Reasons to invest in Interactive Design Rule Checking tools

Top 10 Reasons to invest in Interactive Design Rule Checking tools
by Tom Dillinger on 10-01-2015 at 12:00 pm

One of the most energetic presentations at the recent TSMC OIP 2015 symposium was given by Tom Williams from Qualcomm, who shared his insights (and enthusiasm!) for Mentor’s Calibre RealTime interactive Design Rule Checking (iDRC) product.

Paraphrasing Tom’s presentation (and with a tip of the hat to David Letterman), here … Read More


Electromigration Analysis and FinFET Self-Heating

Electromigration Analysis and FinFET Self-Heating
by Tom Dillinger on 09-24-2015 at 12:00 pm

FinFET processes provide power, performance, and area benefits over planar technologies. Yet, a vexing problem aggravated by FinFET’s is the greater local device current density, which translates to an increased concern for signal and power rail metal electromigration reliability failures. There is a critical secondary… Read More