We covered the ASIC business in Chapter 2 of our book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” using VLSI Technology and eSilicon as shining examples. Neither of which now exist. The ASIC business model was a critical steppingstone in the transformation of the semiconductor industry. Many systems companies… Read More




WEBINAR: Which ASIC Manufacturing Method is Right for You?
Minimizing ASIC production costs is the goal of every company. The problem is that this requires extensive knowledge. You must understand the technical intricacies and the financial implications of multiple activities like wafer production, packaging and QA activities such as electrical tests.
Generally, the more your company… Read More
Google Gaining ADAS Ground
Google’s Head of Android Auto Partnerships, Jens Bussman, joined me on stage last week in Munich at TU-Auto Europe to discuss Google’s progress and priorities in the global connected car market. The standing-room-only audience was treated to an overview of Google’s plans and some clarifications regarding its different assets… Read More
The New SemiWiki Job Board!
As a very experienced semiconductor job seeker/employer the most important lesson I have learned in 35 years is that getting the first interview is not so much WHAT you know as WHO you know. Networking really is the key to career success and SemiWiki 2.0 is all about networking, absolutely.
In fact, that is one of the reasons why I became… Read More
Mentor Adds Circuit Simulators to the Cloud using Azure
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
Weebit Nano Moves into the Mainstream with Customer Adoption