LIDAR is a controversial topic, with even Elon Musk weighing in on whether it will ever be feasible for use in self driving cars. His contention is that the sensors will remain too expensive and potentially be unreliable because of their mechanical complexity. However, each of the sensors available for autonomous driving have … Read More



IP Lifecycle Management and Permissions
My first professional experience with computers and file permissions was at Intel in the late 1970s, where we used big iron IBM mainframes located far away in another state, and each user could edit their own files along with browse shared files from co-workers in the same department. I saw this same file permission concept when … Read More
Real Men Have Fabs Jerry Sanders, TJ Rodgers, and AMD
In 1977 I made a job change: I took a job at Raytheon Semiconductor. Raytheon was on Ellis Street next door to the Fairchild “Rust Bucket”. In the early days, they shared the same parking lot so my commute didn’t change much, but my outlook on life changed a bunch. I had mostly enjoyed my days at Fairchild, but I hated every single … Read More
Taking the Pain out of UVM
If you are interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the many ways you can leverage the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM), Breker Verification Systems has gone to a lot of effort to put that information at your fingertips.
A technical subcommittee of Accellera voted to establish the UVM in December 2009. UVM was based… Read More
SiFive Fosters RISC-V Collaboration and Education in India and Bangladesh Via Symposiums, Tutorials and Workshops
Last year we hosted several SiFive Tech Symposiums in India to help promulgate the RISC-V ecosystem in the region. The enthusiastic reception from those in industry as well as students and faculty at India’s most esteemed universities was inspiring. This July and August, we’re bringing the SiFive Tech Symposium back to India,… Read More
SemiWiki Webinar Series: Who Wants to do a Webinar?
Webinars have been a popular form of communication since even before SemiWiki existed and they are a mainstay in today’s fast-moving semiconductor ecosystem.
In the past, SemiWiki has assisted with more than a hundred webinars. Today SemiWiki can do a complete webinar from start to finish using the GotoWebinar software. SemiWiki… Read More
Chapter 3 – Moore’s Law is Unconstitutional!
(Adapted from a presentation first given under this title in 1989 and subsequently expanded in presentations over a period of nearly thirty years)
In 1965, Gordon Moore, then R&D Manager for Fairchild Semiconductor, published a paper in “Electronics” magazine predicting the trend for semiconductors in the next ten years. … Read More
The Wild, Wild SEMICON West TechTALK – Joe Costello Speaks Out
On July 9, 2019, I attended the TechTALK session hosted by Dave Kelf of Breker Systems, Inc. titled, “Applied AI in Design-to-Manufacturing.” I was happy to hear what Dave had put together for this since it is a topic I am keenly interested in and because I have known Dave personally through music and charitable activities we have … Read More
5G and V2X
Amid the glamor of autonomous vehicles and hot new ADAS features, communication between vehicles and other vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists or infrastructure, generally labeled V2X, doesn’t get as much press, perhaps because adoption is still pretty early or because it’s technology under the hood (quite literally) and therefore… Read More
#DAC56 – Optimizing Verification Throughput for Advanced Designs in a Connected World
It was the final day of DAC56 and my head was already spinning from information overload after meeting so many people and hearing so many presentations, but I knew that IC functional verification was a huge topic and looming bottleneck for many SoC design teams, so I made a last-minute email request to attend a luncheon panel discussion… Read More
Weebit Nano Moves into the Mainstream with Customer Adoption