System on chip (SoC) based design has long been recognized as a powerful method to offer product differentiation through higher performance and expanded functionality. Yet, it comes with a number of limitations, such as high cost of development. Also, SoCs are monolithic, which can inhibit rapid adaptation in the face of changing… Read More


Effectively Managing Large IP Portfolios For Complex SoC Projects
In today’s world, no IC design is completed without instantiating a few or many pre-verified or already proven intellectual property (IP) blocks. With break-neck pace at which chip designs are advancing, many IP blocks may even be entire chip designs from earlier product releases. Third-party IP market has been growing at a healthy… Read More
RedCap Will Accelerate 5G for IoT
You could be forgiven for wondering why I should push 5G when it might seem marketing is still ahead of deployment. While we may not all have it today, GlobeNewswire (September 22, 2021 12:30 ET) estimates there will be 700 million 5G connections across the world by the end of this year. That’s pretty rapid growth already, though still… Read More
Webinar on Dealing with the Pain Points of AI/ML Hardware
Ever increasing data handling demands make creating hardware for many applications extremely difficult. In an upcoming webinar Achronix, a leading supplier of FPGA’s, talks about the data handling requirements for AI/ML applications – which are growing at perhaps one of the highest rates of all. Just looking at all data… Read More
CEO Interview: Fares Mubarak of SPARK Microsystems
Fares Mubarak is a seasoned Global Executive with more than 30 years of broad management and hands-on experience spanning semiconductor design, software development, operations, sales, marketing, applications, EDA and healthcare IT.
Mubarak was VP/GM of the Semiconductor Business Unit followed by VP of Semiconductor Industry… Read More
Enlisting Entropy to Generate Secure SoC Root Keys
Most methods of securing SOCs involve storing a root key that provides the basis of all derived keys and encryption of communication. The weakness with these methods is that even if the root key is stored in secure non-volatile memory, there are often methods to read the key. Once a key has been divulged the device can be cloned and … Read More
Live 58th Design Automation Conference Coverage!
My beautiful first mate and I will be together at DAC this year. Her first DAC was 1985 in Las Vegas and we lived happily ever after. SemiWiki bloggers Tom Dillinger and Daniel Payne will also be at DAC attending sessions and meeting with exhibiting companies to learn and blog about the latest innovations inside the semiconductor … Read More
A Next-Generation Prototyping System for ASIC and Pre-Silicon Software Development
Every now and then, disruptive technology is brought to market, challenging the way things have been done to that point. We are all familiar with many such technologies. The rhetorical question is, how many of us were aware, recognized and acknowledged those technologies before they became well established? For example, a startup… Read More
Podcast EP51: A Preview of the Needham Keynote at DAC
Dan is joined by Charles Shi, Vice President & Research Analyst for Semiconductors & Semiconductor Equipment at Needham & Company. Charles will be doing an opening keynote next week at the Design Automation Conference. He covers EDA as well as semiconductor equipment at Needham.
Dan explores why Charles is… Read More
CEO Interview: Da Chuang of Expedera
Da is co-founder and CEO of Expedera. Previously, he was cofounder and COO of Memoir Systems, an optimized memory IP startup, leading to a successful acquisition by Cisco. At Cisco, he led the Datacenter Switch ASICs for Nexus 3/9K, MDS, CSPG products. Da brings more than 25 years of ASIC experience at Cisco, Nvidia, and Abrizio.… Read More
Intel’s Pearl Harbor Moment