Most EDA tools started out running on mainframe computers, then minicomputers, followed by workstations and finally desktop PCs running Linux. If your SoC design team is working on a big chip with over a billion transistors, then your company likely will use a compute farm to distribute some of the more demanding IC jobs over lots… Read More




Webinar – 3D NAND Memory Cell Optimization
Flash memory has become ubiquitous, so much so that it is easy to forget what life before it was like. Large scale non-volatile storage was limited spinning disks, which were bulky, power hungry and unreliable. With NAND Flash, we have become used to carrying many gigabytes around with us all the time in the form of cell phones, USB… Read More
Rapid growth of AI/ML based systems requires memory and interconnect IP
Artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) are working their way into a surprising number of areas. Probably the one you think of first is autonomous driving, but we are seeing a rapidly growing number of other applications as time goes on. Among these are networking, sensor fusion, manufacturing, data mining, numerical… Read More
Calibre Commences Cloud Computing
Calibre was a big game changer for DRC users when it first came out. Its hierarchical approach dramatically shortened runtimes with the same accuracy as other existing, but slower, flat tools. However, one unsung part of this story was that getting Calibre up and running required minimal effort for users. Two things are required… Read More
ReRAM Revisited
I met with Sylvain Dubois (VP BizDev and Marketing of Crossbar) at TechCon to get an update on his views on ReRAM technology. I’m really not a semiconductor process guy so I’m sure I’m slower than the experts to revelations in this area. But I do care about applications so I hope I can add an app spin on the topic, also Sylvain’s views on… Read More
Cadence Dives Deeper at Linley Fall Processor Conference
I wrote about Cadence AI IP not long ago when I covered the Cadence Automotive Summit at the end of July (Tensilica DNA 100 Brings the AI Inference Solution for Level 2 ADAS ECUs and Level 4 Autonomous Driving, Tensilica HiFi DSPs for What I Want to Hear, and What I Don’t Want to Hear). One of those two blogs remains one of my most widely … Read More
KLAC- Very Strong Sept & Guide-Foundry up 50%- 5NM & EUV drivers- Outperforming
- KLAC Strong Beat on Both Sept Q & Dec Guide
- Foundry/logic (TSMC) up 50% H2 vs H1
- Gen 5 acceptance and 5NM rollout drive future
Strong beat in Sept results and Dec Guide
KLAC reported revenue of $1.41B and EPS of $2.48 handily beating street estimates of $1.5B and $2.20 in EPS. More importantly the company guided December to be revenues… Read More
Achronix Announces New Accelerator Card at Linley Fall Processor Conference – VectorPath
This blog is my second blog from this year’s Linley Fall Processor Conference. The first two blogs focused on edge inference solutions. Achronix’s discussion was much broader than just AI/ML; it was about where FPGA’s have been going and culminated with a product announcement preview. I’ll get to the announcement in a moment, … Read More
Intel CEO Update Q4 2019
Bob Swan started as interim CEO in June of 2018 and took the full-time CEO job in January of 2019. I was a vocal critic of the previous CEO Brian Krzanich (BK) and really felt he was not fit to serve. As it turns out I was right. It is not just the CEO himself, but also the people that he surrounds himself with. BK surrounded himself with the… Read More
Shipments of 5G Smartphones Will Surge to 900 Million Units in 2024
5G smartphones will increase from just 13 million units in 2019 to 900 million in 2024, as previous 2G/3G/4G smartphones shipments will decline slightly over the 2019-2024 period, reaching parity with 5G smartphones in 3Q 2023, as shown in the chart below.
According to The Information Network’s report “Hot ICs: … Read More
Should the US Government Invest in Intel?