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The Time Has Arrived for AI Based Data Twinning! Shrink the Pipe while Increasing Data Fidelity

The Time Has Arrived for AI Based Data Twinning! Shrink the Pipe while Increasing Data Fidelity
by Tom Freeman on 07-05-2020 at 6:00 am

AI Based Data Twinning

Time to Change our Thinking:
It is time to work the other side of the communications equation. Send less data. But apply new synthetic data science and machine learning to get more and richer information: a way that requires the transfer of radically fewer actual bits – perhaps 1 or 2% of the bits – but with higher model fidelity.… Read More


Tears in the Rain – Arm and China JVs

Tears in the Rain – Arm and China JVs
by Jay Goldberg on 07-03-2020 at 10:00 am

Tears in the Rain – Arm and China JVs

We always warn clients that even in the best of times, Joint Ventures (JVs) in China always end in tears. And we are far from the best of times right now. There is a major example of this playing out right now with Arm China.

Arm’s China JV is, to put it simply, a bit of a mess. The Board has fired the CEO, but he has refused to leave. And owing… Read More


Fast and Accurate Variation-Aware Mixed-Signal Verification of Time-Domain 2-Step ADC

Fast and Accurate Variation-Aware Mixed-Signal Verification of Time-Domain 2-Step ADC
by Daniel Nenni on 07-03-2020 at 6:00 am

Solido SemiWiki

There is an interesting white paper out from Mentor on how a customer used the Solido Varation Designer tool to reduce Monte Carlo simulations. As you may know I worked for Solido for 10+ years up until they were acquired by Mentor in December of 2017. It was an incredible personal and professional experience. I have the highest respect… Read More


COVID-19: Through the Rearview Mirror

COVID-19: Through the Rearview Mirror
by Roger C. Lanctot on 07-02-2020 at 10:00 am

COVID 19 Through the Rearview Mirror

The COVID-19 pandemic has turned the business of reporting news into a funhouse mirror where reality is distorted, up is down, and hopes for improving health and marketplace conditions are simultaneously raised and dashed on a daily basis. The latest news-driven whiplash moment arrived this morning care of the Detroit Free Press

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Staying on the Right Side in Worst Case Conditions – Performance (Part 2)

Staying on the Right Side in Worst Case Conditions – Performance (Part 2)
by Tim Penhale-Jones on 07-02-2020 at 10:00 am

Moortec Part 2 Talking Sense

In this, the second part of a two-part series we delve further into defining worst case, this time focusing specifically on device performance.

In the last blog we talked about the steady increase in power density per unit silicon area and how worst case is definitely getting worse. We discussed how in each new FinFET node the dynamic… Read More


What’s New in Verdi? Faster Debug

What’s New in Verdi? Faster Debug
by Bernard Murphy on 07-02-2020 at 6:00 am

Verdi Unified Debug

Want fast debug? Synopsys recently hosted a Webinar to show off the latest and greatest improvements to Verdi® in performance, memory demand and multi-tasking, among other areas.

Performance improvements
Taruna Reddy (PMM) and Allen Hsieh (Staff apps) presented features of the latest version, released in March – Taruna started… Read More


Killer Drones to be Available on the Global Arms Markets

Killer Drones to be Available on the Global Arms Markets
by Matthew Rosenquist on 07-01-2020 at 10:00 am

Killer Drones to be Available on the Global Arms Markets

Turkey may be the first customer for the Kargu series of weaponized suicide drones specifically developed for military use.  These semi-autonomous devices have been in development since 2017 and will eventually be upgraded to operate collectively as an autonomous swarm to conduct mass synchronized attacks.

This situation… Read More


Contact over Active Gate Process Requirements for 5G

Contact over Active Gate Process Requirements for 5G
by Tom Dillinger on 07-01-2020 at 6:00 am

frequency 5G

Summary
A recent process enhancement in advanced nodes is to support the fabrication of contacts directly on the active gate area of a device.  At the recent VLSI 2020 Symposium, the critical advantages of this capability were highlighted, specifically in the context of the behavior of RF CMOS devices needed for 5G designs.

IntroductionRead More


A Vibrant Semiconductor Manufacturing Model for the US

A Vibrant Semiconductor Manufacturing Model for the US
by Scott Jewler on 06-30-2020 at 10:00 am

Semiconductor Revenue 2019

Having spent the last 30 years in semiconductor manufacturing, eight years of this living and working in Asia, it is both exciting and unsettling to see renewed political interest in the revitalization of this industry in the United States. Gone are the days of ‘It doesn’t make any difference whether a country makes computer chipsRead More


Qualcomm on Power Estimation, Optimizing for Gaming on Mobile GPUs

Qualcomm on Power Estimation, Optimizing for Gaming on Mobile GPUs
by Bernard Murphy on 06-30-2020 at 6:00 am

Phone game

I don’t look at the RTL power estimation topic too often these days, so I was interested to see that ANSYS still has a very strong position in this area. Qualcomm is using PowerArtist on one of the most demanding modern applications – mobile GPU power gaming. Mobile gaming heavily loads the GPU, so any optimization in that area will … Read More