An exceptional customer experience starts before the sale. Successful companies realize it never ends. Dedicated post-sales support and a robust ecosystem for aftermarket product extensions are ingredients that tend to delight the customer. These comments are relevant in the consumer sector, but they apply to high tech as… Read More




Structural CDC Analysis Signoff? Think Again.
Talking not so long ago to a friend from my Atrenta days, I learned that the great majority of design teams still run purely structural CDC analysis. You should sure asynchronous clock domains are suitably represented in the SDC, find all places where data crosses between those domains that require a synchronizer, gray-coded FIFO… Read More
All-In-One Extreme Edge with Full Software Flow
What do you do next when you’ve already introduced an all-in-one extreme edge device, supporting AI and capable of running at ultra-low power, even harvested power? You add a software flow to support solution development and connectivity to the major clouds. For Eta Compute, their TENSAI flow.
The vision of a trillion IoT… Read More
Cadence on Automotive Safety: Without Security, There is no Safety
One of the Designer Track at this year’s DAC focused on the popular topic of automotive electronics. The title was particularly on-point, The Modern Automobile: A Safety and Security “Hot Zone”. The session was chaired by Debdeep Mukhopadhyay, a Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur.
This special, invited… Read More
Combining AI and Advanced Signal Processing on the Same Device
A lot has been written and even more spoken about artificial intelligence (AI) and its uses. Case in point, the use of AI to make autonomous vehicles (AV) a reality. But, surprisingly, not much is discussed on pre-processing the inputs feeding AI algorithms. Understanding how input signals are generated, pre-processed and used… Read More
Webinar Replay – Designing and Verifying HBM ESD Protection Networks
Every chip needs ESD protection, especially RF, analog and nm designs. Because each type of design has specific needs relating to IOs, pad rings, operating voltage, process, etc. it is important that the ESD protection network is carefully tailored to the design. Also because of interactions between the design and its ESD protection… Read More
EUV faces Scylla and Charybdis
It is now time for the EUV community to realize they are caught between the proverbial Scylla and Charybdis. In Greek mythology, the two monsters terrorized ships that were unlucky enough to pass between them. By avoiding one, you approached the other.
S for Scylla, or Stochastics
Scylla was a former beautiful nymph turned into
Appraising the Health of Early-stage Startups
Investors of capital, whether financial or human, utilize numerous methods to decide to participate with an early-stage / seed-stage technology company. The risks are, by definition, much higher than later stage companies pursuing investment in their Series B/C or beyond rounds. It is helpful to establish consistent “health… Read More
Cooley’s 11 Quickie Questions About Virtual DAC’20 Last Week!
Just a little funny history, after I started my Silicon Valley Blog in 2009 several EDA CEOs bullied me into creating my own site to compete with John Cooley’s DeepChip.com. Competition is good, right? One good friend and CEO even suggested I call it DeepNenni.com. Thankfully we came up with something a little less awkward,
LRCX Strong Beat and Guide
Lam reported strong beat & guide, memory returns-
China trade and Covid impact near zero-
Looking at a strong H2 with WFE in mid $50B+-
Back on Cruise Control
Lam reported a great quarter, easily beating expectations coming in at $2.79B and $4.78 in non GAAP EPS-
Guide is for $3.1B +-$200M and EPS of $5.06+-$0.40-
Margins and all… Read More
Intel’s Pearl Harbor Moment