ads mdx semiwiki building trust gen 800x100ai

PCI Express in Depth

PCI Express in Depth
by Luigi Filho on 08-23-2020 at 8:00 am

PCI Express in Depth

This is another post that was requested by a user, and as always i’ll do my best to put in a few articles the basic information that you’ll need to understand how it works at depth level.

PCI Express (or PCIe) is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP standards.

The first… Read More


Fully Self-Aligned 6-Track and 7-Track Cell Process Integration

Fully Self-Aligned 6-Track and 7-Track Cell Process Integration
by Fred Chen on 08-23-2020 at 6:00 am

Fully Self Aligned 6 Track and 7 Track Cell Process Integration

For the 10nm – 5nm nodes, the leading-edge foundries are designing cells which utilize 6 or 7 metal tracks, entailing a wide metal line for every 4 or 5 minimum width lines, respectively (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Left: a 7-track cell. Right: a 6-track cell.

This is a fundamental vulnerability for lithography, as defocus can change… Read More


HCL Webinar Series – HCL Compass Delivers Defect Tracking and More

HCL Webinar Series – HCL Compass Delivers Defect Tracking and More
by Mike Gianfagna on 08-21-2020 at 10:00 am

Screen Shot 2020 08 02 at 9.37.53 PM

Similar to my last post on the HCL DevOps webinar series, I will cover their presentation of HCL Compass in a webinar that was recorded on July 29 about how HCL Compass delivers defect tracking and more.

This webinar was presented by Steve Boone, head of product management at HCL Software DevOps, Howie Bernstein, product manager… Read More


ARC Processor Virtual Summit!

ARC Processor Virtual Summit!
by Daniel Nenni on 08-21-2020 at 6:00 am

ARC Processor Virtual Summit 2020

The ARC Processor has a rich history. Originally named the Argonaut RISC Processor, it was designed for the Nintendo Game Systems in the 1990s. Argonaut Technologies Limited later became ARC International. My first intimate exposure to ARC was in 2009 when Virage Logic acquired ARC. A year later Virage was acquired by Synopsys… Read More


Alchip moves from TSMC 7nm to 5nm!

Alchip moves from TSMC 7nm to 5nm!
by Daniel Nenni on 08-20-2020 at 10:00 am

Alchip 5nm TSMC

While Alchip is speeding its way down the TSMC process technology roadmap I am reminded how important services are to the semiconductor ecosystem. We can thank ASIC companies like Alchip for the heavy investment systems companies have made into semiconductors. We covered this in our book “Fabless: The Transformation of the SemiconductorRead More


Major Hardware Security Initiative Adds Tortuga Logic

Major Hardware Security Initiative Adds Tortuga Logic
by Bernard Murphy on 08-20-2020 at 6:00 am

cybersecurity 2 min

You can update ..Generally, I’m a fan of letting market forces figure out best solutions to whatever evolving needs we may have, but I’m enough of a realist to accept that’s not a workable answer to every need. Some problems need a top-down fix. However, we can’t expect policymakers or industry consortia to create compliance demands… Read More


Inside a Counterfeit 8086 Processor

Inside a Counterfeit 8086 Processor
by Ken Shirriff on 08-19-2020 at 2:00 pm

Fake Intel 8086 CPU

Intel introduced the 8086 processor in 1978, leading to the x86 architecture in use today. I’m currently reverse-engineering the circuitry of the 8086 so I’ve been purchasing vintage 8086 chips off eBay. One chip I received is shown below. From the outside, it looks like a typical Intel 8086.

The package of the fake
Read More

White Paper – Mixed Signal Verification for Nanometer SOCs

White Paper – Mixed Signal Verification for Nanometer SOCs
by Tom Simon on 08-19-2020 at 10:00 am

Mixed signal SOCs

The number of touchpoints between analog and digital circuits in high performance SoCs is increasing. This is not a problem because it is possible to implement critical analog blocks directly on nanometer scale digital ICs. However, in many cases digital interfaces or digital feedback circuitry configures these analog blocks… Read More


CEO Interview: Anna Fontanelli of Monozukuri

CEO Interview: Anna Fontanelli of Monozukuri
by Daniel Nenni on 08-19-2020 at 6:00 am

ANNA

Anna has more than 25 years of expertise in managing complex R&D organizations and programs, giving birth to a number of innovative EDA technologies. She has pioneered the study and development of several generations of IC and package co-design environments and has held senior positions at leading semiconductor and EDA … Read More


The Big Three Weigh in on Emulation Best Practices

The Big Three Weigh in on Emulation Best Practices
by Mike Gianfagna on 08-18-2020 at 10:00 am

Emulation Best Practices

As software content increases in system-on-chip and system-in-package designs, emulation has become a critical enabling technology for the software team. This technology offers software developers the opportunity to verify their code in against a high-fidelity model of the target system that actually executes fast enough… Read More