There is an old saying popularized by Mark Twain that goes “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It turns out that no one can say who originated this saying, yet despite however you might feel about statistics, they play an important role in verifying analog designs. The truth is that there are large numbers… Read More
Cost, Cycle Time, and Carbon aware TCAD Development of new TechnologiesOur good friend Scotten Jones wrote a paper…Read More
3D ESD verification: Tackling new challenges in advanced IC designBy Dina Medhat Three key takeaways 3D ICs…Read More
Reimagining Architectural Exploration in the Age of AIThis is not about architecting a full SoC…Read MorePredicting Bugs: ML and Static Team Up. Innovation in Verification
Can we predict where bugs are most likely to be found, to better direct testing? Paul Cunningham (GM of Verification at Cadence), Jim Hogan and I continue our series on novel research ideas, again through a paper in software verification we find equally relevant to hardware. Feel free to comment if you agree or disagree.
The Innovation… Read More
CEO Interview: Johnny Shen of Alchip
Alchip was founded in 2003 by a group of Silicon Valley veterans that followed a similar path of working for semiconductor companies then moving to the EDA/IP/ASIC ecosystem. In fact, I used to play basketball with the Alchip co-founder/chairman during that time and can tell you he is a fierce competitor. Good thing too because … Read More
Moortec Delivers Distributed, Real-Time Thermal Sensing on TSMC N5 Process
Moortec is known for its innovative in-chip monitoring and sensing products. They’re based in the UK and have been delivering this kind of embedded technology since 2010. Dan Nenni covered an overview of the company recently. SemiWiki also hosted a webinar about optimizing power and increasing data throughput in AI from Moortec… Read More
WEBINAR: Adnan on Challenges in Security Verification
Adnan Hamid, CEO of Breker, has an interesting background. He was born in China to diplomat parents in the Bangladesh embassy. After I’m sure an equally interesting childhood, he got his BSEE/CS at Princeton. Where, like most of us he had to make money on the side, in his case working for a professor in the Psych lab on artificial intelligence… Read More
Talking Sense With Moortec…Speak No Evil!
In the first of this blog trilogy, Talking Sense with Moortec…’Are you listening’, I looked at not waiting for hindsight to be wise after the event, instead make use of what’s available and act ahead of time. In the second, Talking Sense with Moortec…’See no evil’, we bizarrely saw how Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Nelson and Clint… Read More
Welcome Samtec and System Design on SemiWiki
I always enjoy welcoming new corporate members to the SemiWiki platform. Each company brings new technology, a different perspective and the opportunity for the SemiWiki community to hear about another aspect of chip design and manufacturing. But this introduction is different. This time, a new corporate member is opening … Read More
Can Threshold Switches Replace Transistors in the Memory Cell?
The overwhelming majority of transistors produced in the world are used in memory cells, either as the memory itself (Flash, SRAM), or as the access device (DRAM). Yet, it is not necessary to have a transistor in every memory cell. In 2015, 3D XPoint, the first major product based on transistor-less memory cells, was announced [1].
Do You Love DAC? Here’s Why I Do
Hello all, and welcome to DAC Season. As you all probably know by now, there are some twists to DAC Season this year. First, it’s being held July 20 – 24 this year instead of in June. I believe there was one other time the conference spilled into July, so this isn’t the norm. DAC, like pretty much every other conference these days has also… Read More
Google Coming to Your Car
Casual observers of the automobile industry are quick to compare connected cars to “smartphones on wheels.” It’s a simple way of looking at things that makes some sense now that half of all cars produced in the world are made with a built-in cellular modem…or two. It belies the complexity of connecting… Read More




Quantum Computing Technologies and Challenges