The crystalline structure of silicon delivers the incredible capabilities that have fueled the exponential increases defined by Moore’s Law. It turns out that silicon in its purest form will fall short at times – power handling and speed are examples. In these cases, adding additional materials to the silicon can enhance its … Read More




Chiplets and IP and the Trust Problem
Perforce recently hosted a webinar on “IP Lifecycle Management for Chiplet-Based SoCs”, presented by Simon Butler, the GM for the Methodics IPLM BU. The central theme was trust, for IPs as much as chiplets. How can an IP/chiplet consumer trust that what they receive has not been compromised somewhere in the value chain from initial… Read More
Synopsys Expands Synopsys.ai EDA Suite with Full-Stack Big Data Analytics Solution
More than two years ago, Synopsys launched its AI-driven design space optimization (DSO.ai) capability. It is part of the company’s Synopsys.ai EDA suite, an outcome of its overarching AI initiative. Since then, DSO.ai has boosted designer productivity and has been leveraged for 270 production tape-outs. DSO.ai uses machine… Read More
Stochastic Model for Acid Diffusion in DUV Chemically Amplified Resists
Recent articles have focused much effort on studying the stochastic behavior of secondary electron exposure of EUV resists [1-4]. Here, we consider the implications of extending similar treatments to DUV lithography.
Basic Model Setup
As before, the model uses pixel-by-pixel calculations of absorbed photon dose, followed… Read More
The TSMC Pivot that Changed the Semiconductor Industry!
During my research I found an interview with Don Brooks from February 2000. It was very interesting and confirmed some of the things I knew about Don and brought up a few things I did not know. It’s an hour but it is a video of Don telling his story and is definitely worth a look. One of the things that was not mentioned however is the… Read More
Podcast EP181: A Tour of yieldHUB’s Operation and Impact with Carl Moore
Dan is joined by Carl Moore, a semiconductor and yield management expert with a career spanning 40 years. Carl’s held technical management positions across product and test engineering, assembly, manufacturing, and design at established semiconductor companies. Carl is passionate about data analytics and has a reputation… Read More
SMIC N+2 in Huawei Mate Pro 60
Up until last December I was president and owner of IC Knowledge LLC, at the end of November, I sold IC Knowledge LLC to TechInsights. It has been interesting to become an insider at the world’s leading semiconductor reverse engineering and knowledge company. The latest SMIC N+2 analysis is an excellent example of TechInsight’s… Read More
Podcast EP180: A New Silicon Catalyst Incubator Program in the UK with Sean Redmond
Dan is joined by Sean Redmond, managing partner for Silicon Catalyst. Sean has nearly 40 years of experience in the semiconductor and software industries including stints at VLSI technology, Verisity Design, Cadence, ARC, and others. Sean has recently worked closely with the UK government on industrial digital strategy, co-chairing… Read More
ViShare’s Rapid Market Entry with FPGA-Based Prototyping Solution from S2C
ViShare Technology, a fabless semiconductor company focusing on video codec, developed a chip for 8K60 video streaming with the help of S2C FPGA-based prototyping solution. This solution enables ViShare to accelerate its verification process and time-to-market by 6 months.
Since its establishment in 2012, ViShare has been… Read More
Mixed Signal Verification is Growing in Importance
I have historically avoided mixed signal topics, assuming they decouple from digital and can be left to the experts. That simple view no longer holds water. Analog and digital are becoming more closely linked through control loops and datapaths, requiring a careful balancing act in verification between performance, accuracy… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot