Value chains can be very robust and seemingly unbreakable – until they’re not. One we’ve taken for granted for many years is the chain for electronics systems in cars. The auto OEM, e.g. Toyota, gets electronics module from a Tier-1 supplier such as Denso. They, in turn, build their modules using chips from a semiconductor chip maker… Read More
Semiconductor Intellectual Property
Synopsys Introduces Industry’s First Complete USB4 IP Solution
Synopsys announced an addition to its popular DesignWare IP portfolio recently that has some significant ramifications. The company announced the industry’s first complete USB4 IP solution. Before we get into the details of the announcement, let’s take a quick look at the USB standard and why it’s important.
Standards… Read More
Moortec Delivers Distributed, Real-Time Thermal Sensing on TSMC N5 Process
Moortec is known for its innovative in-chip monitoring and sensing products. They’re based in the UK and have been delivering this kind of embedded technology since 2010. Dan Nenni covered an overview of the company recently. SemiWiki also hosted a webinar about optimizing power and increasing data throughput in AI from Moortec… Read More
Talking Sense With Moortec…Speak No Evil!
In the first of this blog trilogy, Talking Sense with Moortec…’Are you listening’, I looked at not waiting for hindsight to be wise after the event, instead make use of what’s available and act ahead of time. In the second, Talking Sense with Moortec…’See no evil’, we bizarrely saw how Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Nelson and Clint… Read More
Arm Reinforces the Mobile Fortress
Arm did it again. They continue to press their advantage, most recently with an announcement on their 2020 release of cores for mobile applications, in Cortex-A, in what they now call Cortex-X custom cores, in Mali GPUs and in the next generation of their Ethos neural net core.
Paul Williamson, VP GM of the client line of business,… Read More
Tortuga Logic CEO Update 2020
Minimizing Power Consumption in Ultra Low Power MCU Based SoCs
When it comes to extremely power sensitive applications such as IoT and edge devices, there is literally an arsenal of power saving techniques that could be used. The tricky part is figuring out which ones to use and how to use them for maximum benefit. This is coupled with the need to not hamper device performance or functionality.… Read More
PLDA Expands Data Interconnect IP Solutions with CXL and Gen-Z Protocol Support
A couple of months ago I introduced PLDA, a new member of the SemiWiki community, with a post about PLDA’s switch IP and its support for PCIe and NVMe solid state disks. Working in the area of high-performance data interconnects requires support for a growing list of standards, standards that continually evolve. The trick is to stay… Read More
Design in the Time of COVID
There’s a lot of debate about how and when we are going to emerge from the worldwide economic downturn triggered by the pandemic. Everyone agrees we will emerge. This isn’t humanity’s first pandemic, nor will it be our last. But do we come out quickly or slowly? And what does the economy look like on the other side, particularly for … Read More
Talking Sense With Moortec…See No Evil!
In the first of this blog trilogy, Talking Sense with Moortec…’Are you listening’, I looked at not waiting for hindsight to be wise after the event, instead make use of what’s available and act ahead of time.
There’s a Japanese maxim, depicting three ‘wise’ monkeys… Kikazaru, Mizaru, and Iwazaru, better known as ‘hear no evil, … Read More


Podcast EP357: How Gonka is Changing the Way AI is Accessed with David Liberman