When facing a new design objective, we check off all the established tools and flows we know we are going to need. For everything else, we default to an expectation that we will paper over the gaps with scripting, documentation and spreadsheets. And why not? When we don’t know what we will have to deal with, in documentation, scheduling,… Read More



VESA DSC Encoder Enables MIPI DSI to Support 4K resolutions
Some of the MIPI specifications are now massively used in mobile (smartphone), like the Multimedia related specs, Camera Serial Interface (CSI-2) and Display Serial Interface (DSI). These specifications are now adopted inautomotive infotainment systems, and augmented reality (AR)/ virtual reality (VR) devices. If you … Read More
DesignShare is all About Enabling Design Wins!
One of the barriers to silicon success has always been design costs, especially if you are an emerging company or targeting an emerging market such as IoT. Today design start costs are dominated by IP which is paid at the start of the project and that is after costly IP evaluations and other IP verification and integration challenges.… Read More
12 Year-old Semiconductor IP and Design Services Company Receives New Investment
I have a transistor-level IC design background so was intrigued to learn more from the CEO of an IP and services company that started out in India 12 years ago. Last week I spoke with Samir Patel, CEO of Sankalp Semiconductorabout the newest $5 million financial investment in his company from Stakeboat Capital Fund. The Stakeboat… Read More
Webinar: High-Capacity Power Signoff Using Big Data
Want to know how NVIDIA signs off on power integrity and reliability on mega-chips? Read on.
PPA over-design has repercussions in increased product cost and potential missed schedules with no guarantee of product success. Advanced SoCs pack more functionality and performance resulting in higher power density, but traditional… Read More
Webinars: Bumper Pack of AMS Webinars from ANSYS
Power integrity and reliability are just as important for AMS designs as they are for digital designs. Ansys is offering a series of five webinars on this topic, under a heading they call ANSYS in ACTION, a bi-weekly demo series from ANSYS in which an application engineer shows you how simulation can address common applications.… Read More
TSMC EDA 2.0 With Machine Learning: Are We There Yet ?
Recently we have been swamped by news of Artificial Intelligence applications in hardware and software by the increased adoption of Machine Learning (ML) and the shift of electronic industry towards IoT and automobiles. While plenty of discussions have covered the progress of embedded intelligence in product roll-outs, an… Read More
Deep Learning and Cloud Computing Make 7nm Real
The challenges of 7nm are well documented. Lithography artifacts create exploding design rule complexity, mask costs and cycle time. Noise and crosstalk get harder to deal with, as does timing closure. The types of applications that demand 7nm performance will often introduce HBM memory stacks and 2.5D packaging, and that creates… Read More
Choosing the lesser of 2 evils EUV vs Multi Patterning!
For Halloween this week we thought it would be appropriate to talk about things that strike fear into the hearts of semiconductor makers and process engineers toiling away in fabs. Do I want to do multi-patterning with the huge increase in complexity, number of steps, masks and tools or do I want to do EUV with unproven tools, unproven… Read More
Effective Project Management of IoT Designs
ClioSoft is well known for their SoC design data management software SOS7 and more recently for their IP reuse ecosystem called designHUB. What is less known is how designHUB enables design teams to collaborate efficiently and better manage their projects by keeping everyone in sync during development. Not only does it provide… Read More
Intel’s Pearl Harbor Moment