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Chapter 8 – Value Through Differentiation in Semiconductor Businesses

Chapter 8 – Value Through Differentiation in Semiconductor Businesses
by Wally Rhines on 08-30-2019 at 6:00 am

Gross Profit Margin Percent Provides a Measure of Product Value

The difference between what customers will pay for a physical product and what it costs to make or acquire it is a good measure of differentiation. This difference divided by the revenue is the gross profit margin percent or GPM%. Once a product has an established market… Read More


GloFo & TSMC lawsuit- A Surrogate Trade War- Pushing TSMC into China’s open arms?

GloFo & TSMC lawsuit- A Surrogate Trade War- Pushing TSMC into China’s open arms?
by Robert Maire on 08-29-2019 at 10:00 am

Surrogate Wars
Is GloFo using the trade war as an excuse?
Does TSMC get lumped in with China on trade?
Does this alienate TSMC into China’s embrace?

Much like Vietnam and Korea before it, there have been a number of “surrogate” wars between the US and China as well as many other wars between the US and Russia using… Read More


Lint for Implementation

Lint for Implementation
by Bernard Murphy on 08-29-2019 at 6:00 am

Conformal Litmus

When I was at Atrenta, we took advantage of opportunities to expand our static tool (aka linting) first to clock domain crossing (CDC) analysis and DFT compatibility and later to static analysis of timing constraints, all of which have importance in implementation. CDC is commonly thought of as an RTL-centric analysis, however,… Read More


Webinar: VLSI Design Methodology Development (new text)

Webinar: VLSI Design Methodology Development (new text)
by Tom Dillinger on 08-28-2019 at 10:00 am

Daniel Nenni was gracious enough to encourage me to conduct a brief webinar describing a new reference text, recently published by Prentice-Hall, part of the Semiwiki Webinar Series.

VLSI DESIGN Methodology Development Webiner Replay

Background

I was motivated to write the text to provide college students with a broad background… Read More


IEDM 2019 to Highlight Innovative Devices for an Era of Connected Intelligence

IEDM 2019 to Highlight Innovative Devices for an Era of Connected Intelligence
by Scotten Jones on 08-28-2019 at 6:00 am

The IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting is in my opinion the leading technology conference to understand the current state-of-the-art in semiconductor process technology. Held each year in early December in San Francisco it is a must attend conference for anyone following technology development. The following is… Read More


Tensilica DNA 100 Brings the AI Inference Solution for Level 2 ADAS ECUs and Level 4 Autonomous Driving

Tensilica DNA 100 Brings the AI Inference Solution for Level 2 ADAS ECUs and Level 4 Autonomous Driving
by Randy Smith on 08-27-2019 at 10:00 am

I recently wrote about Tensilica’s HiFi DSPs which played a significant role at Cadence’s Automotive Design Summit which was held on the Cadence San Jose campus at the end of July. That article focused on infotainment while briefly touching on Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS). ADAS is NOT synonymous with autopilot.… Read More


Build More and Better Tests Faster

Build More and Better Tests Faster
by Bernard Murphy on 08-27-2019 at 5:00 am

Breker has been in the system test synthesis game for 12 years, starting long before there was a PSS standard. Which means they probably have this figured out better than most, quite simply because they’ve seen it all and done it all. Breker is heavily involved in and aligned with the standard of course but it shouldn’t be surprising… Read More


Achieving Functional Safety through a Certified Flow

Achieving Functional Safety through a Certified Flow
by Daniel Payne on 08-26-2019 at 10:00 am

Methodics: Tool and process certification

Functional safety (FuSa) is a big deal, especially when driving a car. My beloved 1998 Acura RL recently exhibited a strange behavior at 239K miles, after making a turn the steering wheel would stay tilted in the direction of the last turn instead of straightening out. The auto mechanic pinpointed the failure to the ball joints, … Read More


What Fairchild, AMD, Actel and Jurassic Park Have in Common

What Fairchild, AMD, Actel and Jurassic Park Have in Common
by John East on 08-26-2019 at 6:00 am

Me.

In the early stories of this series  (Weeks three though six), I talked about what I believe were the three seminal events in the history of the semiconductor:  Shockley’s invention of the transistor, Noyce’s invention of the integrated circuit, and Intel’s 1971 —  the introductions  of the first commercially successful… Read More


Tesla Stakes Insurance Claim!

Tesla Stakes Insurance Claim!
by Roger C. Lanctot on 08-25-2019 at 2:00 pm

In its most recent shareholders’ meeting Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk noted that the Tesla Model 3 is the highest revenue producing car in the U.S. and fourth best-selling by unit volume. He also noted Tesla’s vehicles’ industry-leading fuel efficiency and range.

Musk took the further step of emphasizing the lower cost of

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