As SoCs have got more complex, and with a larger and larger software content, it is no longer good enough to just monitor how the design behaves using simulation and then completely forget about it once the design is complete. What is required is the capability to monitor the design in real time (in silicon or FPGA) to see how it is behaving.… Read More
Semiconductor Intellectual Property
SerDes: Four Wires Are Better Than Two
Kandou Bus SA has recently been proposing the technique ENRZ (Ensemble Non Return to Zero) for use as the next generation interconnect standard for the 56 Gb/s generation of interconnect interfaces at the OIF (Optical Interconnect Forum). ENRZ is technique where three bits are orthogonally modulated over four correlated wires.… Read More
MIPI IP segment to reach $100M? Yes, …
… in 2019. At that time, the total Interface IP market is expected to weight between $900 million and $1 billion. If we want to understand this IP market segment dynamics, we have to look at protocol based products like USB (from USB 1.0 defined in 1996 at 12 Mbit/s to USB 3.1 supporting 10 Gbps data rate) or PCI Express (from PCIe gen-1… Read More
A Brief History of Mobiveil
Semiconductor IP is a relatively established frontier for innovation in Silicon Valley but it is not as easy as it looks. It certainly is not as easy as the two year old start-up Mobiveil has made it look. With a team of more than 100, led by experienced Semiconductor IP professionals, Mobiveil already has a portfolio of silicon proven… Read More
eSilicon on Semiconductor IP Challenges
On April 18, 2014 in Monterey California there will be a series of discussions on the challenges of IP reuse. These discussions are part of the 2014 Electronic Design Process Symposium (EDPS). Representatives from IP, ASIC, foundry and EDA will weigh in the challenges and issues. Here is a preview of one of the presentations from… Read More
Bye-Bye DDRn Protocol?
In fact, this assertion is provocative, as the DDR4 protocol standard has just been released by JEDEC… after 10 years discussion around the protocol features. Yes, the first discussions about DDR4 have started ten years ago! Will DDR4 be used in the industry? The answer is certainly yes, and DDR4 will most probably be used for years.… Read More
Bluetooth Smart radio IP, backed by ARM
For most devices, the on ramp to the Internet of Things means wireless, connecting a microcontroller or SoC via some kind of radio. It seems every merchant semiconductor company and embedded software firm has jumped on board the IoT wagon. There is a litany of chips, modules, operating systems, and protocol stacks already, and … Read More
Care and trimming of MEMS sensors
My first job in electronic design circa 1981 was making analog autopilots and control devices for RPVs – the early form of what today we call UAVs. A couple of really delicate boxes with gyroscopes, accelerometers, and magnetometers, and several boards full of LM148 quad op-amps surrounded by a lot of resistors and capacitors made… Read More
IP Challenges, FinFET, 3D-IC, and FD-SOI Updates
Semiwiki is proud to be a sponsor of EDPS 2014:
April 17 & 18, 2014
Monterey Beach Hotel, Monterey, CA
Sponsored by:
IEEE Computer Society of Silicon Valley (CS-SCV)
IEEE Computer Society
Design Automation Technical Committee (DATC)
Council on Electronic Design Automation (CEDA)
The Electronic Design Processes Symposium… Read More
Book review: “shift left” with virtual prototypes
Shipping a product with complete software support at official release is a lot more difficult than it sounds. Inevitably, there is less than enough hardware to go around, and what little there is has to fill the needs of hardware designers, test and certification engineers, software development teams, systems integration teams,… Read More
Selling the Forges of the Future: U.S. Report Exposes China’s Reliance on Western Chip Tools