For decades, speculative execution was a brilliant solution to a fundamental bottleneck: CPUs were fast, but memory access was slow. Rather than wait idly, processors guessed the next instruction or data fetch and executed it ‘just in case.’ Speculative execution traces its lineage back to Robert Tomasulo’s work… Read More
Artificial Intelligence
LLMs Raise Game in Assertion Gen. Innovation in Verification
LLMs are already simplifying assertion generation but still depend on human-generated natural language prompts. Can LLMs go further, drawing semantic guidance from the RTL and domain-specific training? Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO… Read More
Scaling AI Infrastructure with Next-Gen Interconnects
At the recent IPSoC Conference in Silicon Valley, Aparna Tarde gave a talk on the importance of Next-Gen Interconnects to scale AI infrastructure. Aparna is a Sr. Technical Product Manager at Synopsys. A synthesis of the salient points from her talk follows.
The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally… Read More
Siemens Describes its System-Level Prototyping and Planning Cockpit
We all know semiconductor design is getting harder. Much harder when you consider the demands of AI workloads and heterogeneous integration of many chiplets in a single package. This class of system demands co-optimization across the entire design flow. For example, functional verification, thermal analysis, signal and power… Read More
Recent AI Advances Underline Need to Futureproof Automotive AI
The world of AI algorithms continues to advance at a furious pace, and no industry is more dependent on those advances than automotive. While media and analysts continue to debate whether AI will deliver value in business applications, there is no question that it adds value to cars, in safety, some level of autonomous driving, … Read More
The Growing Importance of PVT Monitoring for Silicon Lifecycle Management
In an era defined by complex chip architectures, ever-shrinking technology nodes and very demanding applications, Silicon Lifecycle Management (SLM) has become a foundational strategy for optimizing performance, reliability, and efficiency across the lifespan of a semiconductor device. Central to effective SLM are Process,… Read More
TSMC Brings Packaging Center Stage with Silicon
The worldwide TSMC 2025 Technology Symposium recently kicked off with the first event in Santa Clara, California. These events typically focus on TSMC’s process technology and vast ecosystem. These items were certainly a focus for this year’s event as well. But there is now an additional item that shares the spotlight – packaging… Read More
Perspectives from Cadence on Data Center Challenges and Trends
From my vantage point in the EDA foxhole it can be easy to forget that Cadence also has interests in much broader technology domains. One of these is in data center modeling and optimization, through their Cadence Reality Digital Twin Platform. This is an area in which they already have significant track record collaborating with… Read More
Designing and Simulating Next Generation Data Centers and AI Factories
At NVIDIA’s recent GTC conference, a Cadence-NVIDIA joint session provided insights into how AI-powered innovation is reshaping the future of data center infrastructure. Led by Kourosh Nemati, Senior Data Center Cooling and Infrastructure Engineer from NVIDIA and Sherman Ikemoto, Sales Development Group Director from … Read More
CEO Interview with Dr. Michael Förtsch of Q.ANT
Dr. Michael Förtsch, CEO of Q.ANT, is a physicist and innovator driving advancements in photonic computing and sensing technologies. With a PhD from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, he leads Q.ANT’s development of Thin-Film Lithium Niobate (TFLN) technology, delivering groundbreaking energy efficiency … Read More


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