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Chip Startups are Succeeding with Silicon Catalyst and Partners Like Arm

Chip Startups are Succeeding with Silicon Catalyst and Partners Like Arm
by Mike Gianfagna on 12-04-2020 at 6:00 am

Chip Start Ups are Succeeding with Silicon Catalyst and Partners Like Arm

Earlier this year I wrote about Silicon Catalyst and a potent new addition to their In-Kind and Strategic Partner Programs, Arm. Fast-forward to today and there are real results to report.  As I mentioned in the prior post, Silicon Catalyst provides a unique incubator environment which includes deeply discounted technology … Read More


Curvilinear FPD Layout and Schematics

Curvilinear FPD Layout and Schematics
by Daniel Payne on 12-03-2020 at 10:00 am

layout ladder min

You are likely reading this blog using a Flat Panel Display (FPD), because they are so ubiquitous in our desktop, tablet and smart phone devices. Today I’m following up from a previous article. A quick recap of the unique design flow for FPD is shown below:

What follows is the second part of a Q&A discussion with Chen Zhao… Read More


Sign Off Design Challenges at Cutting Edge Technologies

Sign Off Design Challenges at Cutting Edge Technologies
by Tom Simon on 12-03-2020 at 6:00 am

Power and Ground Design Challenges

As semiconductor designs for many popular products move into smaller process nodes, the need for effective and rapid design closure is increasing. The SOCs used for many consumer and industrial applications are moving to FinFET nodes from 16 to 7nm and with that comes greater challenges in obtaining design closure. einfochips,… Read More


Analog Bits is Supplying Analog Foundation IP on the Industry’s Most Advanced FinFET Processes

Analog Bits is Supplying Analog Foundation IP on the Industry’s Most Advanced FinFET Processes
by Mike Gianfagna on 12-02-2020 at 10:00 am

Analog Bits is Supplying Analog Foundation IP on the Industrys Most Advanced FinFET Processes

The industry recently concluded a series of technology events for the all the major foundries.  Done as virtual events this year, each one provided a significant update on technology platforms, roadmaps and ecosystem partnerships. These events are quite valuable to chip design teams who need to be aware of the latest in process,… Read More


No Intel and Samsung are not passing TSMC

No Intel and Samsung are not passing TSMC
by Scotten Jones on 12-02-2020 at 6:00 am

Slide1

Seeking Alpha just published an article about Intel and Samsung passing TSMC for process leadership. The Intel part seems to be a theme with them, they have talked in the past about how Intel does bigger density improvements with each generation than the foundries but forget that the foundries are doing 5 nodes in the time it takes… Read More


A Fast Checking Methodology for Power/Ground Shorts

A Fast Checking Methodology for Power/Ground Shorts
by Tom Dillinger on 12-01-2020 at 10:00 am

Figure 4

The most vexing problem for physical implementation engineers is debugging errors due to power-ground “shorts”, as reported by the layout-versus-schematic (LVS) physical verification flow.  The number of polygons associated with each individual grid is large – an erroneous connection between grids results in a huge number… Read More


Noose tightens on SMIC- Dead Fab Walking?

Noose tightens on SMIC- Dead Fab Walking?
by Robert Maire on 12-01-2020 at 6:00 am

SMIC US Embargo

-US Administration to “blacklist” SMIC- Cutting off ALL US help
-A slow death versus a quick death (unlike Jinhua)
-There is enough time on way out door to leave scorched earth
-Reports in the Media about SMIC being “Blacklisted”

It has been widely reported that SMIC will be added to the US “Blacklist”… Read More


PLDA Brings Flexible Support for Compute Express Link (CXL) to SoC and FPGA Designers

PLDA Brings Flexible Support for Compute Express Link (CXL) to SoC and FPGA Designers
by Mike Gianfagna on 11-30-2020 at 10:00 am

PLDA Brings Flexible Support for Compute Express Link CXL to SoC and FPGA Designers

A few months ago, I posted a piece about PLDA expanding its support for two emerging protocol standards: CXL™ and Gen-Z™.  The Compute Express Link (CXL) specification defines a set of three protocols that run on top of the PCIe PHY layer. The current revision of the CXL (2.0) specification runs with the PCIe 5.0 PHY layer at a maximum… Read More


ML plus formal for analog. Innovation in Verification

ML plus formal for analog. Innovation in Verification
by Bernard Murphy on 11-30-2020 at 6:00 am

innovation min

Can machine learning be combined with formal to find rare failures in analog designs? ML plus formal for analog – neat! Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Jim Hogan and I continue our series on research ideas. Here an idea from analog simulation sampling. Feel free to comment.

The Innovation

This month’s pick… Read More


Applied Materials Will Regain Semiconductor Equipment Lead From ASML in 2020

Applied Materials Will Regain Semiconductor Equipment Lead From ASML in 2020
by Robert Castellano on 11-29-2020 at 10:00 am

2020 WFE Share

On December 2, 2019, I posted a SemiWiki article entitled “ASML Will Take Semiconductor Equipment Lead from Applied Materials in 2019.”Since losing its dominance for the first time since 1990 in 2019, Applied Materials is poised to lose its retake the 2020 lead in the semiconductor equipment market. ASML led the… Read More