Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. I fear the Greeks especially when bearing gifts. In Virgil’s Aeneid these words are spoken by the Trojan priest Laocoön warning about the wooden horse that the Greeks have offered Troy. But to no avail, Laocoön is slain by serpents and the Trojans bring the horse inside the walls of Troy. Since… Read More
SITRI and Coventor Partner to Scale Up MEMS in China
When it comes to wearable technology and the rapidly emerging world of IoT, sensors and MEMS are on the frontlines. They collect and transfer raw data such as pressure, temperature and motion and process it with algorithms critical to making sure the right information gets to humans and/or machines so the right reaction is enabled.… Read More
FinFET: The Miller’s Tale
In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the second of the tales told by the pilgrims is The Miller’s Tale. Since this is a family blog, I’ll leave you to research the tale yourself. But FinFETs hide another Miller’s Tale, due to Miller capacitance, sometimes called the Miller effect. This is significant since in FinFET designs Miller capacitance… Read More
How Good is Your DRC Deck?
Design Rule Check (DRC) is the #1 foundry sign-off check. Fabless companies receive the DRC deck from the foundry; it’s a file comprising thousands of commands in a proprietary checker language for a specific DRC tool. In advanced technologies such a deck executes tens of thousands of geometric operations on the physical… Read More
How Microtechnology Will Change Just About Everything
When I hear the term micro-technology my first thought is of accelerometers and gyroscopes. However as I’ll explain shortly, micro technology is being applied to a lot more than smartphones and quadcopters. The fruits of development in this area will affect industry, medical, energy, transportation and many other sectors. … Read More
SemiWiki at #52DAC: Nominated for Best Paper Award!
Blogging for Semiwiki is a very good exercise to prepare a paper submission at DAC. Writing a short article using about 600 words to pass one message, and try to deliver this message as clearly as possible. Writing a paper for DAC is very similar, as you have to be synthetic and develop a thesis in 5 slides, no more, as it’s a time limited… Read More
FD-SOI the Synapse Way
Last week I talked to Marco Brambilla of Synapse Design. Synapse is a design services company headquartered in Silicon Valley. It was founded in 2003 by Satish Bagalkotkar and has been profitable since the beginning. Today it has over 700 people. In addition to the headquarters in Santa Clara, they have a software group in Colorado,… Read More
How Sidense Sees The Smart Connected Universe
Sidenserecently conducted a webinar on what they call the Smart Connected Universe. They consider the Smart Connected Universe as something that includes a collection of market segments that are both smart and connected. This casts a big net, and includes what many are calling IoT, but goes further into medical, automotive and… Read More
Is Low Power a Challenge? ICE-Grain Answers the Challenge
Blogs have limited wordcount so insert your own generic opening paragraph here about the importance of low power in IC design. Mention IoT and cloud datacenters for extra credit.
It is well-known that the biggest reductions in power come from changes at the architectural level. Tools and process can do some things and since they… Read More
Antifuse is the New Foundation of NVM Below 16nm
Today the non-volatile memory (NVM) foundation is the eFuse. It is typically available for free from the foundry and is the default choice because, like Mount Everest, it is there. However, like Mount Everest it is big. It is also power hungry and slow. eFuse solutions blow the silicide on the poly line creating a change in resistance.… Read More