AI and machine learning are two popular buzz words in the high-tech daily news, so you should be getting used to hearing about them by now. What I hadn’t realized was that EDA companies are starting to use machine learning techniques, and specifically targeted at the daunting and compute intensive task of creating SPICE models… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
Verifying Design for In-Car Networks
Once upon a time the role of electricity in a car was pretty modest: spark plugs, alternator, lighting, some simple instrumentation and maybe heating, all supported by an equally simple wiring harness (my wife has a 1962 Morris Minor, so I know exactly what the whole wiring harness looks like). How times have changed. Now most or … Read More
On-Chip Power Distribution Networks Get Help from Magwel’s RNi
Counting squares is a useful tool for calculating simple resistance in wires, but falls short in reality when wires deviate from ideal. Frequently the use of RC extraction tools for determining resistance in signal lines in digital designs can be effective and straightforward. However, there are classes of nets in designs that… Read More
SPIE Advanced Lithography and Synopsys!
SPIE is the premier event for lithography held in Silicon Valley and again Scotten Jones and I will be attending. EUV is generally the star of the show and this year will be no different now that TSMC has committed to EUV production in 2019.
Last year at SPIE, TSMC presented the history of EUV development from the beginning in 1985 as … Read More
Finding Transistor-level Defects Inside of Standard Cells
In the earliest days of IC design the engineering work was always done at the transistor-level, and then over time the abstraction level moved upward to gate-level, cell-level, RTL level, IP reuse, and high-level modeling abstractions. The higher levels of abstraction have allowed systems to be integrated into an SoC that can… Read More
Four Steps for Logic Synthesis in FPGA Designs
I remember meeting Ken McElvain at Silicon Compilers for the first time back in the 1980’s, he was a gifted EDA tool developer that did a lot of coding including logic synthesis, a cycle-based simulator and ATPG. Mentor Graphics acquired Silicon Compilers with Ken included, and he continued to create another logic synthesis… Read More
CEO Interview: David Dutton of Silvaco
Silvaco has undergone one of the most impressive EDA transformations so it was a pleasure to interview the man behind it. David Dutton’s 30+ year career started at Intel, Maxim, and Mattson Technology where he led the company’s turnaround and finished as President, CEO, and board member. David joined Silvaco as CEO… Read More
SoC Integration using IP Lifecycle Management Methodology
Small EDA companies often focus on a single point tool and then gradually over time they add new, complementary tools to start creating more of a sub-flow to help you get that next SoC project out on time. The most astute EDA companies often choose to partner with other like-minded companies to create tools that work together well,… Read More
Timing Closure Complexity Mounts at FinFET Nodes
Timing closure is the perennial issue in digital IC design. While the specific problem that has needed to be solved to achieve timing closure over the decades has continuously changed, it has always been a looming problem. And the timing closure problem has gotten more severe with 16/14nm FinFET SoCs due to greater distances between… Read More
Power Management Beyond the Edge
Power in IoT edge devices gets a lot of press around how to make devices last for years on a single battery charge, significantly through “dark silicon” – turning on only briefly to perform some measurement and shoot off a wireless transmission before turning off again. But we tend to forget that the infrastructure to support… Read More


AI Bubble?