Seeking Solution for Saving Schematics?

Seeking Solution for Saving Schematics?
by Tom Simon on 11-24-2017 at 7:00 am

Schematics are still the lynchpin of analog design. In the time that HDL’s have revolutionized digital design, schematics have remained drawn and used much as they have been for decades. While the abstraction of HDL based designs has made process and foundry porting relatively straightforward, porting schematic based designs… Read More


High performance processor IP targets automotive ISO 26262 applications

High performance processor IP targets automotive ISO 26262 applications
by Tom Simon on 11-09-2017 at 12:00 pm

The reason you are seeing a lot more written about the ISO 26262 requirements for automotive electronics is, to put it bluntly, this stuff is getting real. Driver assist systems are no longer only found in the realm of Mercedes and Tesla, almost every car in every brand offers some driver assist features. However, the heavy lifting… Read More


Synopsys discusses the challenges of embedded vision processing

Synopsys discusses the challenges of embedded vision processing
by Tom Simon on 11-01-2017 at 12:00 pm

Before the advent of convolutional neural networks (CNN), image processing was done with algorithms like HOG, SIFT and SURF. This kind of work was frequently done in data centers and server farms. To facilitate mobile and embedded processing a new class of processors was developed – the vision processor. In addition to doing a … Read More


The perfect pairing of SOCs and embedded FPGA IP

The perfect pairing of SOCs and embedded FPGA IP
by Tom Simon on 10-30-2017 at 12:00 pm

In life, there are some things that just go together. Imagine the world without peanut butter and jelly, eggs and potatoes, telephones and voicemail, or the internet and search engines. In the world of computing there are many such examples – UARTS and FIFO’s, processor cores and GPU’s, etc. Another trait all these things have is… Read More


Open source RISC-V ISA brings a new wrinkle to the processor market

Open source RISC-V ISA brings a new wrinkle to the processor market
by Tom Simon on 10-25-2017 at 12:00 pm

By now most people are quite comfortable with the idea of using an open source operating system for many computing tasks. It speaks volumes that Unix, and Linux in particular, is used in the vast majority of engineering, financial, data base, machine learning, data center, telecommunications and many other applications. It was… Read More


Implementing IEEE 1149.1-2013 to solve IC counterfeiting, security and quality issues

Implementing IEEE 1149.1-2013 to solve IC counterfeiting, security and quality issues
by Tom Simon on 10-16-2017 at 12:00 pm

As chips for any design are fabricated, it turns out that no two are the exactly the same. This is both a blessing and a curse. Current silicon fabrication technology is amazingly good at controlling factors that affect chip to chip uniformity. Nevertheless, each chip has different characteristics. The most extreme case of happens… Read More


A better way to combine PVT and Monte Carlo to improve yield

A better way to combine PVT and Monte Carlo to improve yield
by Tom Simon on 10-11-2017 at 12:00 pm

TSMC held its Open Innovation Platform Forum the other week on September 13[SUP]th[/SUP]. Each year the companies that exhibit at this event choose to highlight their latest technology. One of the most interesting presentations that I received during the event was from Solido. In recent years they have produced a number of groundbreaking… Read More


TSMC Teamwork Translates to Technical Triumph

TSMC Teamwork Translates to Technical Triumph
by Tom Simon on 10-02-2017 at 12:00 pm

Most people think that designing successful high speed analog circuits requires a mixture of magic, skill and lots of hard work. While this might be true, in reality it also requires a large dose of collaboration among each of the members of the design, tool and fabrication panoply. This point was recently made abundantly clear … Read More


Burning Man 2017 – My vacation is your worst nightmare

Burning Man 2017 – My vacation is your worst nightmare
by Tom Simon on 09-17-2017 at 5:00 pm

I often use this space to report on industry events I have attended and what I have learned at them. So, this article will be a slight, but not complete, departure from this. I am reporting on my experiences at Burning Man this year. For the unacquainted, Burning Man is a temporary city of around 70,000 people in a remote desert-like … Read More


Customizable Analog IP No Longer a Pipe Dream

Customizable Analog IP No Longer a Pipe Dream
by Tom Simon on 08-28-2017 at 12:00 pm

Configurable analog IP has traditionally been a tough nut to crack. Digital IP, of course, now provides for wide configurability for varying applications. In the same way that analog design has remained less deterministic as compared to digital design, analog IP has also tended to be less flexible. However, the tide may be turning… Read More