When I started in this business, we were at 3 micron HMOS. A few other things are close to that size. A red blood cells is about 9 microns, a human hair is about 100 microns. And in a bizarre “only in Japan” video, people compete to plane the thinnest shaving off a plank of wood. It turns out the answer is 9 microns. That’s… Read More
Navigating the new patent landscape
If you are considering filing a patent, you should know about the new patent rules effectinve on March 16, 2013. Most importantly, patent rights will switch from “first-to-invent” to “first-to-file.” Before we continue, I am not a lawyer; I’m just a dumb blogger. Seek actual legal advice about the new patent laws if you think… Read More
Tubes of the Future
So what is a silicon nanowire? It is basically a FET where the active element is a wire 3-20nm in diameter. So where a FinFET has the gate wrapped around 3 sides of the transistor, a nanowire (NW) has it wrapped around all four. In essence, the wire runs through the middle of the gate.
There seem to be three issues about building a silicon… Read More
Could “Less than Moore” be better to support Mobile segment explosion?
If you take a look at the explosion of the Mobile segment, linked with the fantastic world-wide adoption of smartphone and media tablet, you clearly see that the SC industry evolution during –at least- the next five years will be intimately correlated with the mobile segments. Not really a surprise, but the question I would like … Read More
SemiWiki Hits Major Readership Milestone!
For those of you who follow SemiWiki and the fabless semiconductor ecosystem it has been a very interesting two years:
The Semiconductor Wiki Project, the premier semiconductor collaboration site, is a growing online community of professionals involved with the semiconductor design and manufacturing ecosystem. Since going… Read More
Startups: the Biggest Challenge
What is the biggest challenge facing an EDA startup today? By a startup, I mean a brand new company, not a company that already has a few customers and is either on a fast path to success or a slower path whereby the company can continue to grow slowly forever.
Obviously, one challenge is the funding environment. Since EDA acquisitions… Read More
Apple Makes More on iPhone Than Samsung on Everything
Apple’s stock is down 10% after they announced “disappointing” results. They are only disappointing in the sense that some analysts expected even bigger profits. At $13.08 billion it is the largest quarterly profit for any corporation that is not in the oil business ever. According to wikipedia, even the … Read More
How to manage decreasing by 70% a $5B IC business in less than 6 years? TI knows the answer…
The Wireless Business Unit (WBU) from TI was created in the mid 90’s to structure the chip business in wireless handset made with customers like Nokia, Ericsson or Alcatel. I had a deep look at the WBU results: quickly growing from $1B in 2000 to reach about $5B in 2005… to finally decrease by 70%, down to $1.3B in 2012.
Let’s make it clear:… Read More
Will Google Go Thermonuclear?
“It’s not like we started it,” said Larry. “After all the idea of going Thermonuclear was first broached by Steve to Eric at their outdoor café meeting in Palo Alto way back in 2010. We’re just following by example and as Steve was wont to quote Picasso; “good artist copy, great artist steal” so why not go Thermonuclear with our Android… Read More
Apple’s Next Threat
It seems only appropriate that at the beginning of the year we should look at who is going to be the next significant threat to Apple’s profitability machine. During Apple’s meteoric rise over the past 9 years (APPL share price: Jan-2004 @ $11 vs. Jan-2013 @ $550) different companies have been put up as Apple’s next significant threat… Read More
PDF Solutions Charts a Course for the Future at Its User Conference and Analyst Day