The bleeding edge of SoC design was on full display last month at DAC in Austin as I listened to a panel session where members talked about their specific experiences so far designing with the 7nm process node. Jim Hogan was the moderator and the panel quickly got into what their respective companies are doing with 7nm technology already.… Read More
Semiconductor Intellectual Property
Synopsys New EV6x Offers 4X More Performance to CNN
When Synopsys bought Virage Logic in 2010, ARC processor IP was in the basket, but at that time ARC processor core was not the most powerful on the market, and by far. The launch of EV6x vision processor sounds like Synopsys has moved ARC processor core by several orders of magnitude in term of processing power. EV6x deliver up to 4X … Read More
Embedded FPGA’s create new IP category
FPGA’s are the new superstar in the world of Machine Learning and Cloud Computing, and with new methods of implementing them in SOC’s there will be even more growth ahead. FPGA’s started out as a cost effective method for implementing logic without having to spin an ASIC or gate array. With the advent of the web and high performance… Read More
Memories for the Internet
In 1969 the Internet was born at UCLA when a computer there sent a message to a computer at Stanford. By 1975, there were 57 computers on the ‘internet’. Interestingly in the early seventies I actually used the original Xerox Sigma 7 connected to the internet in Boelter Hall at UCLA. A similar vintage computer is now in this room commemorating… Read More
Open-Silicon SerDes TCoE Enables Successful Delivery of ASICs for Next-generation, High-Speed Systems
With 5G cellular networks just around the corner, there is an ever-increasing number of companies working to bring faster communications chips to the market. Data centers are now deploying 100G to handle the increased bandwidth requirements, typically in the form of four 28Gbps channels and that means ASIC designers are looking… Read More
Don’t Miss “The IP Paradox” Panel @ #54 DAC!
Despite the strong consolidation in the semiconductor industry, the Design IP market is still growing: from $3 billion in 2015 to $3.4 billion in 2016. That’s why the DAC IP Committee has organized this panel, titled “The IP Paradox: Growing Business Despite Consolidations” (you can see more on the events page: https://dac.com/events… Read More
The FPGA Business Just Got Interesting Again!
FPGA’s have played an important role in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem which is why it has a full chapter in our book Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry. Along my career path I spent time at a start-up FPGA so I know how hard it is. I worked for GateField which was then acquired by FPGA pioneer Actel… Read More
Worldwide Design IP Revenue Grew 13.1% in 2016, According to Final Results by IPnest
Despite the strong consolidation in the semiconductor industry, the Design IP market is going well, very well with YoY growth of 13.1% in 2016, according with the Design IP Report from IPnest. ARM Group of Softbank (previously known as ARM Holding) is again the strong #1 with IP revenues (licenses plus royalties) of $1,647 million… Read More
CCIX Protocol Push PCI Express 4.0 up to 25G
The CCIX consortium has developed the Cache Coherent Interconnect for Accelerators (X) protocol. The goal is to support cache coherency, allowing faster and more efficient sharing of memory between processors and accelerators, while utilizing PCIe 4.0 as transport layer. With Ethernet, PCI Express is certainly the most popular… Read More
Active Voice
Voice activated control, search, entertainment and other capabilities are building momentum rapidly. This seems inevitable – short of Elon Musk’s direct brain links, the fastest path to communicate intent to a machine is through methods natural to us humans: speech and gestures. And since for most of us speech is a richer… Read More
cHBM for AI: Capabilities, Challenges, and Opportunities