Synopsys IP Designs Edge AI 800x100

The Great 2020 Mobility Rethink

The Great 2020 Mobility Rethink
by Roger C. Lanctot on 04-03-2020 at 10:00 am

The Great 2020 Mobility Rethink

General Motors’ announced shut down of the Maven car sharing service was hardly a surprise, especially coming in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time of its demise, Maven was only operating in four or five cities, down from a high of 17. The venture was doomed from the start, and its departure is a cautionary tale for

Read More

Filling the ASIC Void – Part 2

Filling the ASIC Void – Part 2
by Mike Gianfagna on 04-03-2020 at 6:00 am

Screen Shot 2020 03 24 at 5.00.49 PM

I concluded my last post on the topic with an inventory of the key attributes needed to fill the ASIC void created by the relentless consolidation in semiconductors. There were five items, as follows:

  1. Design and manufacturing expertise in a market that requires custom chips
  2. Differentiating IP and the skills to integrate it into
Read More

Private Datacenter Safer than the Cloud? Dangerously Wrong.

Private Datacenter Safer than the Cloud? Dangerously Wrong.
by Bernard Murphy on 04-02-2020 at 6:00 am

Cloud Security

The irony around this topic in the middle of the coronavirus scare – when more of us are working remotely through the cloud – is not lost on me. Nevertheless, ingrained beliefs move slowly so it’s still worth shedding further light. There is a tribal wisdom among chip designers that what we do demands much higher security than any other… Read More


COVID-19 and Chinese Automotive Innovation

COVID-19 and Chinese Automotive Innovation
by Roger C. Lanctot on 04-01-2020 at 10:00 am

COVID19 and Chinese Automotive Innovation

It’s a shame that the U.S. president and his administration have chosen to criticize and attack China for its poor management of the novel coronavirus crisis. It is rapidly becoming evident that China now knows more than any other country how to effectively confront the pathogen and bring it to its knees.

Rather than reaching

Read More

Chip-to-Chip Communication for Enterprise and Cloud

Chip-to-Chip Communication for Enterprise and Cloud
by Mike Gianfagna on 04-01-2020 at 6:00 am

Screen Shot 2020 03 14 at 4.35.20 PM

I recently had the opportunity to attend a SemiWiki webinar entitled “Chip-to-Chip Communication for Enterprise and Cloud”.  The webinar was presented by SiFive and explored chip-to-chip communication strategies for a variety of applications.  In the first part of the webinar, Ketan Mehta, director of SoC IP product marketing… Read More


Webinar on eNVM Choices at 28nm and below by Globalfoundries

Webinar on eNVM Choices at 28nm and below by Globalfoundries
by Tom Simon on 03-31-2020 at 10:00 am

eFLASH Replacement MRAM

Embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) plays an essential role in most systems and SoCs. eFLASH has found its way into a wide range of devices, including automotive, industrial, IoT and those in a mixture of other markets. NAND Flash has proven to be a workhorse in all of these areas. For instance, MCUs use them for code and data storage… Read More


PSS, Test Realization and Reuse

PSS, Test Realization and Reuse
by Bernard Murphy on 03-31-2020 at 6:00 am

Generating tests from PSS

Mentor just released a white paper on this topic which I confess has taxed my abilities to blog the topic. It’s not that the white paper is not worthy – I’m sure it is. I’m less sure that I’m worthy to blog on such a detailed technical paper. But I’m always up for a challenge, so let’s see what I can make of this, extracting a quick and not very… Read More


Mixed-Signal Debugging Gets a Boost

Mixed-Signal Debugging Gets a Boost
by Daniel Payne on 03-30-2020 at 6:00 am

starvision pro

Having the right tool for the job at hand is always a joy, and when your IC project involves RTL code, gates, transistors and even parasitic interconnect, then you need some EDA tool help for debugging and finding out why your design behaves the way it is. An FAE named Sujit Roy did a conference call with me last week to show what StarVisionRead More


Newsflash Chip Equip Blockade Back on!

Newsflash Chip Equip Blockade Back on!
by Robert Maire on 03-29-2020 at 2:00 pm

US China Blockade


Blocking chip sales to Huawei back on front burner
Covid19 & China Trade are equally bad
Long lived Uncertainty could “plague” industry sales going forward
Political Predictability worse than Disease Predictability

Reuters broke a story today that the proposed licensing of chip equipment to prevent “bad… Read More


Shut Uber Down Now

Shut Uber Down Now
by Roger C. Lanctot on 03-29-2020 at 12:00 pm

Shut Uber Down Now

By now it is pretty clear that everywhere outside of China and South Korea human beings are doing a lousy job of “social distancing,” locking down, and sheltering in place. This is unfortunate because experts agree that only a complete lockdown will stop COVID-19 from infecting millions, continuing to kill thousands,

Read More