There is always a lot of buzz about advanced AI workloads at trade shows. How to train them and how to run them. Advanced chip and multi-die designs are how AI is brought to life, so it was a perfect fit for discussion at a show. But there is another side of this discussion. Much of the work going on in AI workloads has to do with processing… Read More
Artificial Intelligence
Chiplets: Powering the Next Generation of AI Systems
AI’s rapid expansion is reshaping semiconductor design. The compute and I/O needs of modern AI workloads have outgrown what traditional SoC scaling can deliver. As monolithic dies approach reticle limits, yields drop and costs rise, while analog and I/O circuits gain little from moving to advanced process nodes. To sustain … Read More
Better Automatic Generation of Documentation from RTL Code
One technical topic I always find intriguing is the availability of links between documentation and chip design. It used to be simple: there weren’t any. Architects wrote a specification (spec) in text, in Word if they had PCs, or using “troff” or a similar format if they were limited to Unix platforms. Then the hardware designers… Read More
Learning from In-House Datasets
At a DAC Accellera panel this year there was some discussion on cross-company collaboration in training. The theory is that more collaboration would mean a larger training set and therefore higher accuracy in GenAI (for example in RTL generation). But semiconductor companies are very protective of their data and reports of copyrighted… Read More
PDF Solutions Calls for a Revolution in Semiconductor Collaboration at SEMICON West
SEMICON West was held in Phoenix, Arizona on October 7-9. This premier event brings the incredibly diverse global electronics supply chain together to address the semiconductor ecosystem’s greatest opportunities and challenges. The event’s tagline this year is:
Stronger Together — Shaping a Sustainable Future in Talent,… Read More
The AI PC: A New Category Poised to Reignite the PC Market
The PC industry is entering its most significant transformation since the debut of the IBM PC in 1981. That original beige box ushered in a new era of productivity, reshaping how corporations and individuals worked, communicated, and created. More than four decades later, the AI PC is emerging as a new category — one that promises… Read More
Webinar – The Path to Smaller, Denser, and Faster with CPX, Samtec’s Co-Packaged Copper and Optics
For markets such as data center, high-performance computing, networking and AI accelerators the battle cry is often “copper is dead”. The tremendous demands for performance and power efficiency often lead to this conclusion. As is the case with many technology topics, things are not always the way they seem. It turns out a lot … Read More
Webinar – IP Design Considerations for Real-Time Edge AI Systems
It is well-known that semiconductor growth is driven by AI. That simple statement breaks down into many complex use cases, each with its own requirements and challenges. A webinar will be presented by Synopsys on October 23 that focuses on the specific requirements for one of the most popular use cases – AI at the edge. The speaker… Read More
Secure-IC and Silicon Labs Raise the Bar for Hardware Security
Cybersecurity is getting more critical every day. Thanks to sophisticated AI attacks, the need for hardware chip-level security is greater than ever. To fortify hardware against these types of attacks is not easy. There are three key attributes of a successful strategy: a well-designed root-of-trust, collaboration to ensure… Read More
Why Choose PCIe 5.0 for Power, Performance and Bandwidth at the Edge?
Synopsys recently held a webinar session on this topic and Gustavo Pimentel, Principal Product Marketing Manager at the company led the webinar session. Going into the webinar session, I found myself wondering: why focus on PCIe 5.0, eight years after its release? With the industry buzzing about Edge AI, cloud computing, and … Read More


AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification