As EUV lithography is being targeted towards pitches of 30 nm or less, fundamental differences from conventional DUV lithography become more and more obvious. A big difference is in the mask use. Unlike other photolithography masks, EUV masks are absorber patterns on a reflective multilayer rather than a transparent substrate.… Read More





“Too Big To Fail Two” – Could chip failure take down tech & entire economy?
-Chips enable tech sector which underpins entire economy
-Is the US chip sector “Too Big To Fail”?
-If US chip industry fails, does tech & everything else follow?
-How chip/Taiwan crisis compares to 2008 financial meltdown
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times
We find it an incredible juxtaposition… Read More
Podcast EP53: Breker’s New CEO Weighs in on the Company, DAC and the Future of Verification
Dan is joined by Dave Kelf, who was recently appointed CEO of Breker Verification Systems. Dave discusses Breker’s unique approach to verification of complex systems, what its future impact will be and what Breker will be doing at DAC.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in these podcasts belong solely to the
COVID Still Impacting Electronics
Electronics production has been volatile over the past two years primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Electronics production three-month-average change versus a year ago is shown below for key Asian countries. COVID-19 shutdowns affected production in early 2020. Trends in 2021 show a strong bounce back.
The key trends … Read More
Is Ansys Reviving the Collaborative Business Model in EDA?
The Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry used to be a bustling bazaar of scrappy startups, along with medium sized companies that dominated a technology space, and big main-line vendors. The annual Design Automation Conference was noisy, hectic, and sprawled over multiple large convention halls. This diversity meant… Read More
Ramping Up Software Ideas for Hardware Design
This is a topic in which I have a lot of interest, covered in a panel at this year’s DAC; Raúl Camposano chaired the session. I had earlier covered a keynote by Moshe Zalcberg at Europe DVCon late in 2020; he now reprises the topic. Given the incredible pace of innovation and scale in software development these days, I don’t see what we… Read More
Top 10 Takeaways from DAC 2021
The “in-person” portion of the Design Automation Conference (DAC) was recently held in San Francisco. (As several presenters were unable to attend, a “virtual” program is also available.) The presentations spanned a wide gamut – e.g., technical advanced in design automation algorithms; new features in commercial EDA tools; … Read More
Semicon West is Semicon Less
- Semicon West was Semicon Less- Less Customers & Vendor
- Everyone is busy as can be, maybe too busy to attend
- Those who were there, talk about supply chain issues & stress
- How long does the party last & where the money comes from?
Semicon West was Semicon Less….
We attended a “Hybrid” version of Semicon… Read More
PCIe 6.0, LPDDR5, HBM2E and HBM3 Speed Adapters to FPGA Prototyping Solutions
We live in the age of big data. No matter how fast and complex modern SoCs are, it all comes down to how quickly data can get in and out that determines the system performance. And, there is a lot of data that today’s systems need to process. Naturally, system interfaces such as PCIe, DDR, HBM, etc., have been evolving rapidly too, to support… Read More
DAC 2021 – Accellera Panel all about Functional Safety Standards
Functional safety has been at the forefront of the electrification of our vehicles with new ADAS features, and the push to reach autonomous driving, while having compliance with the ISO 26262 functional safety standard. I attended the Accellera hosted panel discussion on Monday at DAC, hearing from functional safety panelists… Read More
Should the US Government Invest in Intel?