Now that claims and counter claims about advances in foundational AI seem to be dying down, it becomes more interesting to look at the next wave – AI applications in key markets. Figuring out what is really happening here presents its own problems. Marketing and analyst literature still projects unbounded promise (now dialed back… Read More
What if China doesn’t want TSMC’s factories but wants to take them out?
Insights into the Semiconductor Industry and the Semiconductor Supply Chain
I am not an expert in geopolitical issues, but lately, my research has begun to worry me. As I was preparing to be interviewed for Chinese media, I was in my “Chinese Zone”, adapting to what is palatable to a Chinese audience. Maybe my mode provoked the thought:… Read More
Automotive Designs Have No Room for Error!
Automotive designs demand a high level of fault tolerance, and one of the methods to achieve this is to use error correcting codes (ECC). This Wikipedia page ECC Memory gives a flavor, though that article concentrates on memory and we are interested in wider applications using a form of forward error correction. This technique … Read More
Career in EDA Versus Chip Design: Solving the Dilemma
Chip design and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) are two sides of the same coin in the semiconductor industry. Both fields are critical for developing the advanced integrated circuits (ICs) that power our modern world. This article explores the differences between a career in chip design and EDA, drawing on my personal experience… Read More
Podcast EP232: The Evolution of Yield Learning and Silicon Debug with Marc Hutner
Dan is joined by Marc Hutner. Marc has been innovating in the areas of design, test, DFT and data analytics for more than 20 years. In June of 2023, he joined the Siemens EDA Tessent group as the product director of Silicon Learning, enabling how silicon data is applied to yield improvement and silicon debug. Previously, he worked … Read More
VLSI Technology Symposium – Intel describes i3 process, how does it measure up?
At the VLSI Technology Symposium this week Intel released details on their i3 process. Over the last four nodes Intel has had an interesting process progression. In 2019, 10nm finally entered production with both high performance and high-density standard cells. 10nm went through several iterations eventually resulting in… Read More
Three New Circuit Simulators from Siemens EDA
The week before DAC I had the privilege to take a video call with Pradeep Thiagarajan – Product Manager, Simulation, Custom IC Verification at Siemens EDA to get an update on new simulation products. I’ve been following Solido for years now and knew that they were an early adopter of ML for Monte Carlo simulations with SPICE users.… Read More
Podcast EP231: Details of the New Solido Simulation Suite with Sathish Balasubramanian
Dan is joined by Sathishkumar Balasubramanian. Sathish currently leads the product management and marketing organization for CustomIC Verification (CICV) division at Siemens. Sathish is an experienced product leader with over 20+ years of experience in the EDA industry.
Sathish’s focus is on bringing value to the semiconductor… Read More
Siemens Provides a Complete 3D IC Solution with Innovator3D IC
Heterogeneous multi-die integration is gaining more momentum all the time. The limited roadmap offered by Moore’s Law monolithic, single-die integration has opened the door to a new era of more-than-Moore heterogeneous integration. The prospects offered by this new design paradigm are exciting and the entire ecosystem is… Read More
New EDA Tool for 3D Thermal Analysis
An emerging trend with IC design is the growing use of chiplets and even 3D IC designs, as the disaggregated approach has some economic and performance benefits over a single SoC. There are thermal challenges with using chiplets and 3D IC designs, so that means that thermal analysis has become more important. I just spoke with Michael… Read More
AI Semiconductor Market