Creating Analog PLL IP for TSMC 5nm and 3nm

Creating Analog PLL IP for TSMC 5nm and 3nm
by Tom Simon on 09-01-2020 at 6:00 am

PLL Optimizations

TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform’s main objective is to create and promote partnership for producing chips. This year’s OIP event included a presentation on the joint efforts of Silicon Creations, Mentor, a Siemens business and TSMC to produce essential PLL IP for 5nm and 3nm designs. The relentless push for smaller geometries… Read More


Getting Physical to Improve Test – White Paper

Getting Physical to Improve Test – White Paper
by Tom Simon on 08-26-2020 at 6:00 am

Calculating Total Critical Area

One of the most significant and oft repeated trends in EDA is the use of information from layout to help drive other parts of the design flow. This has happened with simulation and synthesis among other things. Of course, we think of test as a physical operation, but test pattern generation and sorting have been netlist based operations.… Read More


White Paper – Mixed Signal Verification for Nanometer SOCs

White Paper – Mixed Signal Verification for Nanometer SOCs
by Tom Simon on 08-19-2020 at 10:00 am

Mixed signal SOCs

The number of touchpoints between analog and digital circuits in high performance SoCs is increasing. This is not a problem because it is possible to implement critical analog blocks directly on nanometer scale digital ICs. However, in many cases digital interfaces or digital feedback circuitry configures these analog blocks… Read More


New Processor Helps Move Inference to the Edge

New Processor Helps Move Inference to the Edge
by Tom Simon on 08-10-2020 at 10:00 am

MIPI IP from Mixel

Many of the most compelling applications for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are found on mobile devices and when looking at the market size in that arena, it is clear that this is an attractive segment. Because of this, we can expect to see many consumer devices having low power requirements at the edge with… Read More


Webinar Replay – Designing and Verifying HBM ESD Protection Networks

Webinar Replay – Designing and Verifying HBM ESD Protection Networks
by Tom Simon on 08-03-2020 at 10:00 am

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Every chip needs ESD protection, especially RF, analog and nm designs. Because each type of design has specific needs relating to IOs, pad rings, operating voltage, process, etc. it is important that the ESD protection network is carefully tailored to the design. Also because of interactions between the design and its ESD protection… Read More


DAC Panel – Artificial Intelligence Comes to CAD: Where’s the Data?

DAC Panel – Artificial Intelligence Comes to CAD: Where’s the Data?
by Tom Simon on 07-30-2020 at 10:00 am

Which problems are ripe for AIML

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are becoming more and more commonplace in our world. We have Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant that understand our voice commands. Vision systems that recognize objects are used for facial recognition, autonomous driving, medical, geographical and many other applications.… Read More


How About a Faster Fast SPICE? Much Faster!

How About a Faster Fast SPICE? Much Faster!
by Tom Simon on 07-22-2020 at 10:35 am

Analog FastSPICE eXTreme

When Analog FastSPICE was first introduced in 2006 it changed the landscape for high performance SPICE simulation. During the last 14 years it has been used widely to verify advanced nanometer designs. Of course, since then the most advanced designs have progressed significantly, making verification even more difficult. Just… Read More


Novel DFT Approach for Automotive Vision SoCs

Novel DFT Approach for Automotive Vision SoCs
by Tom Simon on 07-16-2020 at 6:00 am

Mentor Tessent IC Design

You may have seen a recent announcement from Mentor, a Siemens business, regarding the use of their Tessent DFT software by Ambarella for automotive applications. The announcement is a good example of how Mentor works with their customers to assure design success. On the surface the announcement comes across as a nice block and… Read More


Waking Up to the Requirements of Voice Activity Detection

Waking Up to the Requirements of Voice Activity Detection
by Tom Simon on 07-07-2020 at 6:00 am

Dolphin Design Waking Up

There is a famous scene in the 1976 movie Taxi Driver when Robert De Niro’s character Travis is pretending to have a conversation looking in the mirror and repeatedly saying “Are you talking to me?”. I think about this scene every time I use a voice active device – Hey, are you talking to me? Yes, I am, but are you listening?

Voice command,… Read More


The Moving Target Known as UPF

The Moving Target Known as UPF
by Tom Simon on 06-18-2020 at 10:00 am

UPF hierarchy

As if engineers did not have enough difficulty just getting everything right so that their designs are implemented functionally correct, the demands of lowering power consumption require changes that can affect functionality and verification. Techniques such as power gating, clock gating, mixed supply voltage, voltage … Read More