When I first heard the term ‘bespoke silicon,’ I had to get my dictionary out. Well versed in the silicon domain, I did not know what bespoke meant. It turns out to be a rather old-fashioned term for tailor made and seems to be very much British English. The word dates from 1583 and is the past participle of bespeak, according… Read More




Podcast EP116: A Look at the Future of EDA Research With This Year’s Kaufman Award Winner, Dr. Giovanni De Micheli
Dan is joined by Dr. Giovanni De Micheli, a research scientist in electronics and computer science credited with inventing the network-on-chip (NoC) design automation paradigm and creating EDA algorithms and design tools. Before serving as Professor and Director of the Integrated Systems Laboratory at EPFL, he was Professor… Read More
Post-Silicon Consistency Checking. Innovation in Verification
Many multi-thread consistency problems emerge only in post-silicon testing. Maybe we should take advantage of that fact. Paul Cunningham (Senior VP/GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco CTO) and I continue our series on research ideas. As always,… Read More
Higher-order QAM and smarter workflows in VSA 2023
3GPP Release 17 and 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7) extend modulation complexity, raising the bar for conformance testing and test instrumentation to new levels. The latest release of Keysight PathWave 89600 Vector Signal Analysis 2023 (VSA 2023) software takes on higher-order QAM and smarter workflows, many customer-requested, for … Read More
The Corellium Experience Moves to EDA
Bill Neifert invited me to join him on Zoom recently to talk about his move to Corellium, a company known within the DevSecOps (development, security, operations) market. Developers and security groups use its virtualization technology to build, test, and secure mobile and IoT apps, firmware, and hardware.
Not knowing much … Read More
New Cadence Joint Enterprise Data and AI Platform Dramatically Accelerates AI-Driven Chip Design Development
Without data, there is no computing field to talk about, no technology world to awe at and not much of a semiconductor industry to work in. There is no argument that data is the foundational piece for everything, has been to date and will continue to be. While processing an application’s input data is essential to serve the intended… Read More
Intel Foundry Services Forms Alliance to Enable National Security, Government Applications
This will be the year of the semiconductor foundry ecosystem, absolutely. Right in between the Samsung SAFE Forum and the TSMC OIP Open Ecosystem Forum, Intel Foundry Services (IFS) just announced a United States Military, Aerospace, and Government (USMAG) Alliance.
Brilliant move, of course, due to the US Government now being… Read More
GM’s Bad RTO Optics
The automotive industry has been uniquely whipsawed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Factories, dealerships, and offices were shuttered in its earliest days undercutting both supply and demand.
The industry impacts spread outward from these initial shocks with major auto shows folding their tents and ripples of supply chain disruptions… Read More
Is ASML Immune from China Impact?
-ASML has great QTR & Outlook & Huge Euro8.9B orders
-Relatively immune from China due to mainly non leading edge
-Monster Euro38B backlog – 60EUV & 375DUV systems in 2023
-5% China risk to 2023- still mainly supply constrained
ASML proves litho’s place at Apex of semiconductor food chain
ASML announced… Read More
Podcast EP115: Virtualize Your Development of Arm-Based Designs and More with Corellium
Dan is joined by Bill Neifert, Senior Vice President of Partnerships at Corellium. Prior to Corellium, Bill was Senior Director of Marketing for Arm’s Development Solutions Group. Before that he was the co-founder and CTO of Carbon Design Systems which was acquired by Arm.
Dan explores the virtualization technology of Correlium… Read More
Should Intel be Split in Half?