For SoCs designed for various applications such as mobile, automotive, wearable computing, gaming, virtual reality, PC, imaging, security, and IOT applications, it is incredibly important to keep area (cost) and power as low as possible. Considering the growing percentage of chip area used for memory, it makes sense to choose… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
AMD Unveils Full Radeon RX 400 Models And Positioning At E3
At E3 2016 in Los Angeles, California Advanced Micro Devices disclosed the numbering and targeted use cases of their full line of Polaris-based GPUs, branded as the “Radeon RX Series” of graphics cards. Advanced Micro Devices had previously disclosed some details about the new Radeon RX series of graphics cards at Computex 2016… Read More
NVIDIA Rounds Out Pascal-Based GeForce Lineup With GTX 1060 And New Software Features
NVIDIA has been working hard to progress forward their new Pascal family of GPUs ever since their announcement at Dreamhack in May 2016 in my hometown, Austin, TX. The announcement included two of NVIDIA’s newest GPUs, the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070, both of which are somewhat available now. I worked with my colleague, Anshel Sag, to review… Read More
Why is AMD Stock Jumping?
One of my favorite pastimes is listening to the quarterly investor calls of the leading semiconductor companies. I can then match up the talking points with the calls I do with Wall Street, the conferences I attend, and the other data points I have collected while working inside the fabless semiconductor ecosystem for more than … Read More
Dragging RTL Creation into the 21st Century
When I was at Atrenta, we always thought it would be great to do as-you-type RTL linting. It’s the natural use model for anyone used to writing text in virtually any modern application (especially on the Web, thanks to Google spell and grammar-checks). You may argue that you create your RTL in Vi or EMACS and you don’t need no stinking… Read More
The Appeal of a Multi-Purpose DSP
When you think of a DSP IP, you tend to think of very targeted applications – for baseband signal processing or audio or vision perhaps. Whatever the application, sometimes you want a solution optimally tuned to that need: best possible performance and power in the smallest possible footprint. These needs will continue,… Read More
Formally Crossing the Chasm
Formal verification for hardware was stuck for a long time with a reputation of being interesting but difficult to use and consequently limited to niche applications. Jasper worked hard to change this, particularly with their apps for JasperGold and I have been seeing more anecdotal information that mainstream adoption is growing.… Read More
IMEC Technology Forum at SEMICON – Coventor could save you billions!
The development of leading edge semiconductor technology is incredibly expensive, with estimates ranging from a few to several billion dollars for new nodes. The time to develop a leading edge process is also a critical competitive issue with some of the largest opportunities awarded based on who is first to yield on a new node.… Read More
10nm Will Be an Epic Process Node!
In the history of the fabless semiconductor industry the foundries have always been a process node or two behind the leading semiconductor manufacturers. Starting in Q1 2017, for the first time in fabless semiconductor history, the foundries will have a process node advantage. This is horrible news for some but great news for … Read More
Can one process handle IIoT safety and security?
SemiWiki had another article recently making the case that in IoT applications, safety and security are intertwined, adding that both are important, but they are not the same thing. Mentor Graphics has weighed in with a new white paper trying to tie both issues to a methodology.
Industrial IoT – or IIoT as you’ll often see in shorthand… Read More


AI RTL Generation versus AI RTL Verification