Electrical Verification The invisible bottleneck in IC design 3

PCI Express in Depth – Data Link Layer

PCI Express in Depth – Data Link Layer
by Luigi Filho on 09-06-2020 at 6:00 am

PCI Express in Depth Data Link Layer

In the last article, i wrote about the physical layer, now let’s take a look in the next layer the data link layer.

The Data Link Layer serves as the “gatekeeper” for each individual link within a PCI Express system. It ensures that the data being sent back and forth across the link is correct and received in the same order it

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Alchip at TSMC OIP – Reticle Size Design and Chiplet Capabilities

Alchip at TSMC OIP – Reticle Size Design and Chiplet Capabilities
by Mike Gianfagna on 09-04-2020 at 10:00 am

Alchip machine learning design

This is another installment covering TSMC’s very popular Open Innovation Platform event (OIP), held on August 25. This event presents a diverse and high-impact series of presentations describing how TSMC’s vast ecosystem collaborates with each other and with TSMC.  This presentation is from Alchip, presented by James Huang,… Read More


Highlights of the TSMC Technology Symposium – Part 1

Highlights of the TSMC Technology Symposium – Part 1
by Tom Dillinger on 09-04-2020 at 8:00 am

A72 core high density

Recently, TSMC held their 26th annual Technology Symposium, which was conducted virtually for the first time.  This article is the first of three that attempts to summarize the highlights of the presentations.

This article focuses on the TSMC process technology roadmap, as described by the following executives:

  • Y.J. Mii, SVP,
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How an Nvidia/ARM deal could create the dominant ecosystem for the next computer era

How an Nvidia/ARM deal could create the dominant ecosystem for the next computer era
by Michael Bruck on 09-04-2020 at 6:00 am

PC operating profits

Over the past few weeks, there have been numerous reports about Nvidia’s overtures to acquire Arm. The news has mostly been obsessed about the $31 billion that Arm’s current owner, Softbank, paid for Arm and whether Nvidia could pay such an eye-watering price to buy this asset. There is also pushback from Herman Hauser who was one… Read More


World’s Leading Chip Designers at IDEAS Digital Forum Show How to Streamline Design Flows and Reduce Design Cost

World’s Leading Chip Designers at IDEAS Digital Forum Show How to Streamline Design Flows and Reduce Design Cost
by Daniel Nenni on 09-03-2020 at 10:00 am

ANSYS IDEAS Airplane

Innovative Designs Enabled by Ansys Semiconductor

I’m excited to announce that general registration is now open for the new Ansys IDEAS Digital Forum!  IDEAS, hosted by Ansys Semiconductor, is a virtual gathering of top industry executives, thought leaders, and designers from some of the biggest IP, chip design, semiconductor… Read More


Cerebras and Analog Bits at TSMC OIP – Collaboration on the Largest and Most Powerful AI Chip in the World

Cerebras and Analog Bits at TSMC OIP – Collaboration on the Largest and Most Powerful AI Chip in the World
by Mike Gianfagna on 09-03-2020 at 6:00 am

Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine

This is another installment covering TSMC’s very popular Open Innovation Platform event (OIP), held on August 25. This event presents a diverse and high-impact series of presentations describing how TSMC’s vast ecosystem collaborates with each other and with TSMC. The topic at hand was full of superlatives, which isn’t surprising… Read More


Lip-Bu Hyperscaler Cast Kicks off CadenceLIVE

Lip-Bu Hyperscaler Cast Kicks off CadenceLIVE
by Bernard Murphy on 09-02-2020 at 6:00 am

Lip Bu min

Lip-Bu (Cadence CEO) sure knows how to draw a crowd. For the opening keynote in CadenceLIVE (Americas) this year, he reprised his data-centric revolution pitch, followed by a talk from a VP at AWS on bending the curve in chip development. And that was followed by a talk by a Facebook director of strategy and technology on aspects of… Read More


WEBINAR: Addressing Verification Challenges in the Development of Optimized SRAM Solutions with surecore and Mentor Solido

WEBINAR: Addressing Verification Challenges in the Development of Optimized SRAM Solutions with surecore and Mentor Solido
by Daniel Nenni on 09-01-2020 at 2:00 pm

surecore solido webinar graphic

After spending a significant amount of my career in the IP library business it was an easy transition to Solido Design. I spent 10+ years traveling the world with CEO Amit Gupta working with the foundries and their top customers. In fact, the top 40 semiconductor companies use Solido. IP companies are also big Solido users including… Read More


Webinar: Maximize Performance Using FPGAs with PCIe Gen5 Interfaces

Webinar: Maximize Performance Using FPGAs with PCIe Gen5 Interfaces
by Mike Gianfagna on 09-01-2020 at 10:00 am

Maximize Maximize Performance Using FPGAs with PCIe Gen5 Interfaces

FPGAs are a popular method to implement hardware accelerators for applications such as AI/ML, SmartNICs and storage acceleration. PCIe Gen5 is a high bandwidth communication protocol that is a key enabler for this class of applications. Putting all this together presents significant demands on the FPGA for performance and … Read More


Creating Analog PLL IP for TSMC 5nm and 3nm

Creating Analog PLL IP for TSMC 5nm and 3nm
by Tom Simon on 09-01-2020 at 6:00 am

PLL Optimizations

TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform’s main objective is to create and promote partnership for producing chips. This year’s OIP event included a presentation on the joint efforts of Silicon Creations, Mentor, a Siemens business and TSMC to produce essential PLL IP for 5nm and 3nm designs. The relentless push for smaller geometries… Read More