If you’ve been following DAC general chair Anne Cirkel’s weekly blog, you know the conference program is now final. There’s much to suggest it will be a great DAC, including a record number of submissions in several content categories and a compelling lineup of keynoters. The week will start with an update on Google’s smart contact… Read More
Can You Really Automate Analog IC Layout?
Digital IC design has been largely automated with high-level languages, RTL coding, logic synthesis, and automated place and route tools. What about analog IC layout automation, is it possible? A few EDA companies think that it is possible and even practical. In recent memory there were two companies really focused on analog … Read More
Are There Trojans in Your Silicon? You Don’t Know
Yesterday was the Mentor users’ group U2U. As usual, Wally Rhines gave the keynote, this year entitled Secure Silicon, Enabler for the Internet of Things. Wally started off saying it was a challenge to find a new angle. The number of news articles on cloud computing has exploded from nothing to 72,000 last year. On IoT from … Read More
TSV Modeling Key for Next Generation SOC Module Performance
The use of silicon interposers is growing. Several years ago Xilinx broke new ground by employing interposers in their Virtex®-7 H580T FPGA. Last August Samsung announced what they say is the first DDR4 module to use 3D TSV’s for enterprise servers. Their 64GB double data rate-4 modules will be used for high end computing where … Read More
Don’t Miss Mentor Graphics U2U San Jose, April 21, 2015
Mentor Graphics’ User2User conference will be held next week on April 21[SUP]st[/SUP] at the San Jose DoubleTree Hotel. This one-day, free conference is the perfect opportunity to learn, network, and share with other Mentor Graphics users.
The day starts off with back-to-back keynotes that examine different aspects of the … Read More
Advances in Nanometer Analog and Mixed Signal Design!
Mentor’s annual user group meeting at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, CA is coming up on Tuesday, April 21[SUP]st[/SUP]. This complementary event provides a unique opportunity to share design techniques and exchange ideas with other users and experts in the design community. As you may have read I am the star of the show; moderating… Read More
The Changing Foundry Landscape: Trends and Challenges!
This will be a year of change for the fabless semiconductor ecosystem, absolutely. Last year we were wondering how Samsung Mobile was going to compete with the China clones and other low end smart phones. We now know the answer to that question thanks to the Chipworks tear down of the Galaxy S6. SemiWiki IP expert Dr. Eric Esteve blogged… Read More
Verification IP for PCIe and AXI4
Engineers love acronyms and my latest blog post has three acronyms in the title alone, so hopefully you are doing or considering SoC designs with the AMBA AXI4(Advanced eXtensible Interface 4) interface specification along with PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express). One big motivation for using semiconductor… Read More
Open Source Software Platform Fuels Automotive Innovation
These days, most of the innovative concepts in our cars are driven by electronics; not only infotainment systems, but also instrument clusters, safety systems including ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems), information displays, night vision, airbags, backup camera, stability control, and so on. The upcoming connected… Read More
Full Spectrum Analog FastSPICE Useful for RF Designs on Bulk CMOS
It has been about a year since the acquisition of Berkeley Design Automation by Mentor Graphics. Berkeley was doing quite well in the somewhat crowded SPICE simulator market. In many respects they broke new ground for high speed and accurate SPICE simulators. Since the acquisition we know that former Berkeley executives are now… Read More