Even though design management systems are gaining popularity as a way to manage design data growth, they actually contribute to the problem of exploding data size. What we already know is that a linear increase in die size causes exponential growth in chip area, and that smaller feature sizes compound this effect in the same way.… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
Army of Engineers on Site Only Masks Weakness
Hardware emulation was conceived in the 1980s to address a design verification crisis looming on the horizon. In those days, the largest digital designs were stressing the limits of the software-based, gate-level simulator that was the mainstream tool for the task.
It was anticipated and confirmed in short notice that adopting… Read More
SRAM Optimization for 14nm and 28nm FDSOI
I’ve done SRAM and DRAM design before as a circuit designer from 1978-1986, but in 2016 there are so many more challenges to using 28nm and 14nm on FDSOI technology. One way to keep abreast of SRAM design is to read conference papers, so I just finished a paper from authors at STMicroelectronics and MunEDA presented at the IEEE… Read More
DAC 2016 – Register Now
DAC is again going to be in Austin (reason enough to go), from June 6[SUP]th[/SUP]-8[SUP]th[/SUP] for the main event. A number of events caught my eye:
- Monday AM – custom hardware for algorithmic trading. If you want to know more about FinTech (technology for finance) this could be for you
- Another Monday morning session on Linux
The Emerging Importance of Parallel SPICE
SPICE simulation is the workhorse tool for custom circuit timing validation and electrical analysis. As the complexity of blocks and macros has increased in advanced process nodes — especially with post-layout extraction parasitic elements annotated to the circuit netlist — the model size and simulation throughput… Read More
AMD Forms China X86 Server Chip Joint Venture
We have written a lot of research and notes about the China server market and their unique needs as it relates to security and intellectual property and the ways western server OEMs and chipmakers like Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, ARM Holdings, Qualcomm and IBM’s OpenPOWER are addressing the challenge.
Basically, China wants… Read More
Getting Low Power Design Right in Mixed Signal Designs
Mixed-signal design creates all sorts of interesting problems for implementation and verification flows, particularly when it comes to design for low power. We tend to think of mixed-signal as a few blocks like PLLs, ADCs and PHYs on the periphery of the design. Constrain and verify the digital power requirements up to analog … Read More
Channel Operating Margin (COM) — A Standard for SI Analysis
There’s an old adage, attributed to renowned computer scientist Andrew Tannenbaum, one that perhaps only engineers find amusing: “The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from.” Nevertheless, IEEE standards arise from customer requirements in the electronics industry. Many relate… Read More
CEO Insight: Transformation of Vayavya Labs into System Design Automation
With the advent of SoCs, design abstractions and verification has moved up at the system level. It’s imperative that EDA moves up the value chain to start design automation at system level. The System Design Automation will be the new face of EDA in coming years.… Read More
Why NXP is Moving to FD-SOI (Part II)
At NXP, we’re very excited about the prospects for our new i.MX 7 and 8 series of applications processors, which we’re manufacturing on 28nm FD-SOI. As noted in part I of this article series, the new i.MX 7 series, which leverages the 32-bit ARM v7-A core, is targeting the general embedded, e-reader, medical, wearable… Read More


Five Billion Pulses Later: What DUV Optics Testing Reveals About Semiconductor Tool Uptime