This is the first in a series of CEO interviews and I thought semiconductor IP would be a great place to start. Xerxes Wania is the President and CEO of Sidense, a leading developer of Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) One-Time Programmable (OTP) IP cores. Sidense has been a part of SemiWiki since 2013 so we know them quite well. I hope the rest… Read More
Can it ever be game over in tech?
The opening line of a recent Benedict Evans piece makes a bold statement: “The smartphone platform wars are pretty much over, and Apple and Google won.” Reading that line reminded me of the William Shatner scene in Airplane 2; let’s just shut it down and go home. That’s not the point Evans is making, however, … Read More
A Powerful Case for the ARC SEM Processor
Building devices for the IoT has become especially challenging thanks to two conflicting requirements. The device has to be small and ultra-low power in most applications but also in many of those applications it has to provide a high-level of security, especially to defend high-value targets like smart metering, payment terminals,… Read More
Power-Aware Debug to Find Low-Power Simulation Bugs
When I worked at Intel designing custom chips my management would often ask me, “Will first silicon work?” My typical response was, “Yes, but only for the functions that we could afford to simulate before tape-out.” This snarky response would always cause a look of alarm, quickly followed by a second … Read More
GlobalFoundries Enhances FDSOI Roadmap with 12FDX
Last year, GlobalFoundries filled the competitive gap by offering FD-SOI technology on 22nm, offering better performance than 28nm, you may have read about the news in Semiwiki. Timing is important, as Samsung has announced FD-SOI support one year before (2014) GlobalFoundries, but for 28nm. The announcement made by GlobalFoundries… Read More
What you need to Know about Bluetooth 5
The rate of development in IoT is staggering. Not only are there millions of new devices entering the market every year, but there are numerous emerging technologies for wireless communications, especially those that focus on low power. Keeping track with all of the latest technologies can be difficult, even for industry professionals.… Read More
IoT Tutorial: Chapter 14 – Wearables IoT Systems and Applications
Introducing Wearables
Wearables are small electronic devices, which comprise one or more sensors and are associated with clothing or worn accessories such as watches, wristbands, glasses and jewelry. Wearables come also with some sort of computational capability, which enables them to capture and process data about the physical… Read More
Synopsys Webinar: MIPI Adoption Beyond Mobile, it’s now!
Some of the various MIPI specifications are now massively used in mobile (smartphone or tablet), especially the Multimedia related specs like Camera Serial Interface (CSI-2), Display Serial Interface (DSI) and D-PHY. You have to implement with CSI-2 or DSI controller a serial based physical interface, D-PHY specified up to… Read More
Is Your Next Reality Going to be Augmented?
John Lennon reportedly once said “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination…” and now we have the technology to do something about making our reality a lot more imaginative. Unless you have been living under a rock (and there is nothing wrong with that – I just haven’t found the right rock myself) there is a LOT going on these days in the… Read More
Next SemiWiki Book Signing Event: MIPI DEVCON!
This is the first MIPI DEVCOM event and the location is my favorite, the Computer Museum in Silicon Valley. For those of you who haven’t been, the Computer Museum preserves and presents for posterity the artifacts and stories of the information age, an age we all grew up in. For those of you who have been to the Computer Museum there … Read More
More Headwinds – CHIPS Act Chop? – Chip Equip Re-Shore? Orders Canceled & Fab Delay