When you think of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), this first thing that comes to mind is the development of the internet. And indeed, if you look at their website’s historic timeline, the development of ARPANET, as it was known at the time, is shown prominently in 1969. Incidentally, I actually used one of … Read More





Semiconductors – Limiting Factors; Supply Chain & Talent- Will Limit Stock Upside
– If chips are “as good as it gets” so are the stock prices
– Are we at a near term ceiling that stocks have bounced off of?
– If growth slows do valuations also slow?
– Are we in a holding pattern waiting for a down cycle?
Second order derivative investing
As we have said many times in the past, investors… Read More
Podcast EP41: A First Look at DAC 2021
Dan and Mike are joined by Harry Foster, Chief Scientist Verification at Siemens Digital Industry Software, Co-Founder and Executive Editor for the Verification Academy and 2021 Design Automation Conference General Chair. In this first in a series of DAC podcasts, we explore several dimensions of DAC 2021 with Harry, including … Read More
IBM and HPE Keynotes at Synopsys Verification Day
I have attended several past Synopsys verification events which I remember as engineering conference room, all-engineer pitches and debates. Effective but aiming for content rather than polish. This year’s event was different. First it was virtual, like most events these days, which certainly made the whole event feel more… Read More
Blur, not Wavelength, Determines Resolution at Advanced Nodes
Lithography has been the driving force for shrinking feature sizes for decades, and the most easily identified factor behind this trend is the reduction of wavelength. G-line (436 nm wavelength) was used for 0.5 um in the late 1980s [1], and I-line (365 nm wavelength) was used down to 0.3 um in the 1990s [2]. Then began the era of deep-ultraviolet… Read More
On-Device Tensilica AI Platform For AI SoCs
During his keynote address at the CadenceLIVE 2021 conference, CEO Lip-Bu Tan made some market trend comments. He observed that most of the data nowadays is generated at the edge but only 20% is processed there. He predicted that by 2030, 80% of data is expected to be processed at the edge. And most of this 80% will be processed on edge… Read More
Heterogeneous Package Design Challenges for ADAS
Increasingly complex heterogeneous packaging solutions have proved essential to meeting the rapidly scaling requirements for automotive electronics. Perhaps there is no better example of this than advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) that are found in most new cars. In a recent paper published by Siemens EDA, they … Read More
What the Heck is Collaborative Specification?
It’s been quite a while since I talked with Agnisys CEO and founder Anupam Bakshi, when he described their successful first user group meeting. I reached out to him recently to ask what’s new at Agnisys, and his answer was “collaborative specification.” I told him that I wasn’t quite sure what that term meant, and he offered to spend… Read More
Autonomous Vehicle Rationale Breaks Down
The latest SmartDrivingCars podcast raised fundamental questions regarding the rationale for developing autonomous cars while debating the various paths to market adoption. The discussion took place between Alain Kornhauser – faculty chair of autonomous vehicle engineering at Princeton University and Adriano Alessandrini,
Podcast EP40: The Semiconductor Supply Chain and the Real Cause of Semiconductor Shortages
Dan and Mike are joined by Malcolm Penn, 50-year semiconductor industry veteran and founder and CEO of Future Horizons. Dan and Mike explore the evolution of the semiconductor supply chain, how we got to the current state of shortages and what the future may hold. Drawing on his substantial knowledge of the industry, Malcolm makes… Read More
Rapidus, IBM, and the Billion-Dollar Silicon Sovereignty Bet