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Semiconductor Quidditch @ DesignCon 2011!

Semiconductor Quidditch @ DesignCon 2011!
by Daniel Nenni on 01-26-2011 at 10:09 pm

Process Design Kit (PDK) development is one of the most entertaining things to watch in the semiconductor design world. It is kind of like the Golden Snitch in the game of Quidditch. No matter how rough EDA vendors play the game, no matter what the score is, it’s the vendor that “gets” the Golden PDK Snitch that wins the semiconductor… Read More


iPDK is the way to go for AMS designs

iPDK is the way to go for AMS designs
by Daniel Payne on 01-19-2011 at 3:47 pm

294 towerjazz logo1 jpg

I just read the press release from TowerJazz and Tanner EDA about how an AMS designer can use schematic symbols and layout generators in Tanner EDA tools for the TowerJazz 0.18um node. This is made possible because of the growing iPDK (Interoperable Process Design Kits) movement.

In the old days each foundry would have to staff up… Read More


Aart de Geus ( Synopsys ) for Governor!

Aart de Geus ( Synopsys ) for Governor!
by Daniel Nenni on 01-17-2011 at 7:22 pm

Seriously, I would vote for Aart, he would make a great California Governor. You will probably not meet a more fiscally responsible CEO. Synopsys is one of the best run companies in Silicon Valley and was recently rated in the top 25 on social media site glassdoor.com. Aart ( SNPS ) has a 92% approval rate, Wally ( MENT ) 80%, Lip-Bu ( … Read More


Getting to the 32nm/28nm Common Platform node with Mentor IC Tools

Getting to the 32nm/28nm Common Platform node with Mentor IC Tools
by Daniel Payne on 01-17-2011 at 6:04 pm

Last week I talked with two experts at Mentor about the challenges of getting IC designs into the 32nm/28nm node on the Common Platform (IBM, GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Samsung). Global Foundries issued a press release talking about how the four major EDA companies have worked together to qualify EDA tools for this node.

Sudhakar Jilla,… Read More


EDA Mergers and Acquisition

EDA Mergers and Acquisition
by Daniel Payne on 01-17-2011 at 3:15 pm

I met Ian Getreu in Oregon at a monthly EDA networking luncheon several years ago and have kept in touch with him. Ian co-founded Analogy which was later acquired by Avant! (now Synopsys). One thing that Ian noticed over the years was that smaller EDA companies were constantly getting acquired by the bigger and publicly traded EDA… Read More


3D ICs, the state of the union

3D ICs, the state of the union
by Paul McLellan on 01-14-2011 at 7:30 am

I attended the 3D architectures for semiconductor integration and packaging conference just before Christmas. I learned a lot and have put together an overview of what is going on in 3D ICs. This is not intended for experts (and if I’ve made egregious errors then please correct them in the forum) but more for people who are … Read More


Atrenta to Participate in SemiWiki.com Cloud Based Social Media Platform

Atrenta to Participate in SemiWiki.com Cloud Based Social Media Platform
by Daniel Nenni on 01-13-2011 at 8:35 am

Atrenta Inc., the leading provider of Early Design Closure® solutions to radically improve design efficiency throughout the IC design flow, announced today that it will participate in a worldwide social media platform aimed at facilitating mass communication for electronic design professionals through Web 2.0 technologies.… Read More


EDA360 in PC Today

EDA360 in PC Today
by Paul McLellan on 01-10-2011 at 8:29 pm

At the EDAC CEO panel, Daniel pointed out that he used EDA360 as a good introduction to non-specialists (e.g. financial sector). I just discovered today that the cover article of PC Today is by John Bruggeman (well, Cadence) about EDA360. Having some idea of just how difficult it is to get that sort of specialist article into a general… Read More


EDA / IP Business Model Debate

EDA / IP Business Model Debate
by Daniel Nenni on 01-09-2011 at 11:39 am

First, lets review the business model transitions EDA has seen. We started with perpetual licensing which is a software license for the life of the product. EDA companies did their best to change product names to get incremental revenue above and beyond the yearly 15% maintenance fee but that is a dead end business model for a confined… Read More


Variation-aware Design Survey

Variation-aware Design Survey
by Paul McLellan on 01-05-2011 at 5:56 pm

Solidohas run an interesting survey on variation-aware design. The data is generic and not specific to Solido’s products although you won’t be surprised to know that they have tools in this area.

What is variation-aware design? Semiconductor manufacturing is a statistical process and there are two ways to handle this in the design… Read More