The explosion in volume and consumption of data, fueled by industry trends in virtualization, networking, and computing among others, continues to push photonic solutions forward into leading positions. On Feb 2nd, I attended a panel by Ansys at DesignCon that brought together industry experts from Intel, GlobalFoundries,… Read More
Electronic Design Automation
Keysight Expands EDA Software Portfolio with Cliosoft Acquisition
During the day I do M&A work inside the semiconductor ecosystem and I have been part of more than a dozen acquisitions during my career so I know a good one when I see it and I see a great one with Keysight and Cliosoft, absolutely.
Cliosoft came to SemiWiki 12 years ago when we first went online so I know them quite well. With more than… Read More
Exponential Innovation: HFSS
The old adage: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is as offensive to innovators as it is to grammarians. Just because something works well, doesn’t mean it cannot work better. As times change and technology advances, you either move forward or get left behind.
If you haven’t upgraded to the latest Ansys HFSS electromagnetic simulation… Read More
Speeding up Chiplet-Based Design Through Hardware Emulation
The first chiplets focused summit took place last month. So many accomplished speakers gave keynote talks on what direction should and would the Chiplets ecosystem evolution take. Corigine presented the keynote on what direction hardware emulation should and would evolve for speeding up chiplet- based designs. During a pre-conference… Read More
ML-Based Coverage Acceleration. Innovation in Verification
We looked at another paper on ML-based coverage acceleration back in April 2022. Here is a different angle from IBM. Paul Cunningham (Senior VP/GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco CTO) and I continue our series on research ideas. As always, feedback… Read More
The State of FPGA Functional Verification
Earlier I blogged about IC and ASIC functional verification, so today it’s time to round that out with the state of FPGA functional verification. The Wilson Research Group has been compiling an FPGA report every two years since 2018, so this marks the third time they’ve focused on this design segment. At $5.8 billion… Read More
Interconnect Choices for 2.5D and 3D IC Designs
A quick Google search for “2.5D 3D IC” returns 669,000 results, so it’s a popular topic for the semiconductor industry, and there are plenty of decisions to make, like whether to use an organic substrate or silicon interposer for interconnect of heterogenous semiconductor die. Design teams using 2.5D and … Read More
PCIe 6.0: Challenges of Achieving 64GT/s with PAM4 in Lossy, HVM Channels
As the premier high-speed communications and system design conference, DesignCon 2023 offered deep insights from various experts on a number of technical topics. In the area of high-speed communications, PCIe has a played a crucial role over the years in supporting increasingly higher communications speed with every new revision.… Read More
Optimization Tradeoffs in Power and Latency for PCIe/CXL in Datacenters
PCI Express Power Bottleneck
Madhumita Sanyal, Sr. Technical Product Manager, and Gary Ruggles, Sr. Product Manager, discussed the tradeoffs between power and latency in PCIe/CXL data centers during a live SemiWiki webinar on January 26, 2023. The demands on PCIe continue to grow with the integration of multiple components… Read More
Big plans for state-of-the-art RF and microwave EDA
RF and microwave design is no longer confined to a few defense and aerospace EEs huddled in dark cubicles working with spreadsheets and primitive circuit simulators. Now, areas like 5G and automotive demand complex RF systems. Advanced RF and microwave EDA tools are taking on electromagnetic (EM), thermal, and power simulation,… Read More
Rethinking Multipatterning for 2nm Node