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Konica Minolta Talks About High-Level Synthesis using C++

Konica Minolta Talks About High-Level Synthesis using C++
by Daniel Payne on 07-11-2019 at 8:00 am

Konica Minolta printer

In the early days of chip design circa 1970’s the engineers would write logic equations, then manually reduce that logic using Karnaugh Maps. Next, we had the first generation of logic synthesis in the early 1980’s, which read in a gate-level netlist, performed logic reduction, then output a smaller gate-level netlist.… Read More


WEBINAR: GPU-Powered SPICE – The Way Forward for Analog Simulation

WEBINAR: GPU-Powered SPICE – The Way Forward for Analog Simulation
by Randy Smith on 07-10-2019 at 9:37 am

Several years ago, I was a consultant to a company called Gauda, Inc.  I enjoyed working with Gauda as the technology was interesting. On June 3, 2014, Gauda, Inc. was acquired by D2S, Inc. so their technology lives on. Gauda was focused on optical proximity correction (OPC) and optical proximity verification solutions utilizing… Read More


Smart Hearing is Heating Up

Smart Hearing is Heating Up
by Bernard Murphy on 07-10-2019 at 6:00 am

A lot of the attention in intelligent systems is on object detection in still or video images but there’s another very active area, in smart audio. Amazon and Google smart speakers may be the best-known applications but there are more obvious (and perhaps less novelty-driven) applications in enhancing the hearing devices we already… Read More


The Nanometrics – Rudolph Technology Merger: What Was Nanometrics Thinking?

The Nanometrics – Rudolph Technology Merger: What Was Nanometrics Thinking?
by Robert Castellano on 07-09-2019 at 10:00 am

On June 24, 2019, Nanometrics and Rudolph Technology announced they will combine in an all-stock merger of equals transaction. The companies say the combination increases the SAM (served available market) opportunity to approximately $3B.

This article attempts to analyze the two companies in their different business segments,… Read More


Automotive Market Pushing Test Tool Capabilities

Automotive Market Pushing Test Tool Capabilities
by Tom Simon on 07-09-2019 at 8:00 am

It’s easy to imagine that the main impetus for automotive electronics safety standards like ISO 26262 is the emergence of autonomous driving technology. However, even cars that do not offer this capability rely heavily on electronics for many critical systems. These include engine control, braking, crash sensors, and stability… Read More


Early IP Block Error Detection is Critical!

Early IP Block Error Detection is Critical!
by Daniel Nenni on 07-08-2019 at 10:00 am

The rising complexity of modern SoC designs, as enabled by progressing manufacturing technology, leads to an increasing validation challenge as the only way to manage complexity increase is by re-using more pre-designed IP blocks. These IP-blocks are provided by various suppliers such as a foundry partner, internal design… Read More


Texas Instruments and the TTL Wars

Texas Instruments and the TTL Wars
by John East on 07-08-2019 at 8:00 am

The “20 Questions with John East” series continues

Most people in the IC business understand very well that TTL products dominated our industry for 30 years or so.  They’ll also probably know that TI was the king of TTL. But,  if you ask those people what TTL is,   most won’t have any idea.  If you’re one of those people, rest easy.  … Read More


Banks and ATMs Under Cyber Attack

Banks and ATMs Under Cyber Attack
by Matthew Rosenquist on 07-06-2019 at 5:00 am

The Silence hacking crew, mostly attributed to a group of very crafty Russian hackers, has struck again pulling-in over $3 million in cash from ATMs.

At least 3 banks have been attacked in the latest campaign, with Dutch Bangla Bank being the largest. The criminal hackers first compromised the bank’s card management infrastructure… Read More


Chapter 1 – Predicting Trends in the Semiconductor Industry

Chapter 1 – Predicting Trends in the Semiconductor Industry
by Wally Rhines on 07-05-2019 at 6:00 am

Figure 1 is the most basic of all the predictable parameters of the semiconductor industry, even more so than Moore’s Law.  It is the learning curve for the transistor.  Since 1954, the revenue per transistor (and presumably the cost per transistor, if we had the data from the manufacturers) has followed a highly predictable learning… Read More


Where Have You Gone, Lee Iacocca

Where Have You Gone, Lee Iacocca
by Roger C. Lanctot on 07-04-2019 at 8:00 am

The automotive industry is a funny business. It is simultaneously ruled by ego driven “visionaries” and penny-pinching bean counters. (Don’t believe me? Just ask Bob Lutz.) This id-superego tension plays out in business section headlines every day most recently including the death of FCA’s Sergio… Read More