As much as I love all EDA vendors I must say Cadence did the best DAC this year. Great booth, great location, excellent content, and of course a great party. The 5G presentation in the Cadence booth by Ian Dennison was of great interest to me as I am still trying to wrap my head around this whole 5G thing. I was able to meet with Ian privately… Read More




The Integrated Circuit
The “20 Questions with John East” series continues
Noyce and the rest of the traitorous eight left Shockley without a clue as to what they would do next. They believed in semiconductors and knew that they were the very best semiconductor guys in the world. Their hope was to find a company who would hire them en masse. After some false… Read More
Getting Real about Vehicle Data
There is a lot of talk about data being the new oil fueling the automotive industry. Industry interest began in earnest in 2016 when McKinsey published a report – “Monetizing Car Data” – that noted in the executive summary that the car data market could be as large as $450B-$750B by 2030.
McKinsey: Monetizing Car Data – https://tinyurl.com/y85pk8nu… Read More
Samsung Foundry Update 2019
Samsung Foundry recently held their 4th annual technology forum in Santa Clara. This article reviews the highlights of the presentations. There were two prevalent themes throughout – focused execution on the current process roadmap, and the introduction of the 3nm process node features and schedule.
Before getting into … Read More
56th DAC Las Vegas Trip Report
Having just returned from my 35th DAC I would like to share a few thoughts with the organizers, exhibitors, and attendees. In my experience it was a really well planned DAC. Personally, I like the Las Vegas venue even though it is not near a semiconductor populated city. Those who chose to attend this year were there for a reason which… Read More
Visual SLAM at the Edge
SLAM – simultaneous localization and mapping – is critical for mobile robotics and VR/AR headsets among other applications, all of which typically operate indoors where GPS or inertial measurement units are either ineffective or insufficiently accurate. SLAM is a chicken and egg problem in which the system needs to map its environment… Read More
#56DAC – Machine Learning and its impact on the Digital Design Engineer
Tuesday for lunch at #56DAC I caught up to the AI/ML experts at the panel discussion hosted by Cadence. Our moderator was the affable and knowledgable Prof. Andrew Kahng from UC San Diego. Attendance was good, and interest was quite high as measured by the number of audience questions. I learned that EDA tools that use heuristics… Read More
#56DAC – Panel Discussion: Closing Analog and Mixed-Signal Verification in 5G, HPC and Automotive
Monday afternoon at #56DAC I enjoyed attending a luncheon panel discussion from four AMS experts and moderator, Prof. Georges Gielen, KU Leuven. I follow all things SPICE and this seemed like a great place to get a front-row seat about the challenges that only a SPICE circuit simulator can address. Here’s a brief introduction… Read More
Cadence Releases Enterprise-Level FPGA Prototyping
Big prototyping hardware is essential to modern firmware and software development for pre-silicon, multi-billion gate hardware. For hardware verification it complements emulation, running fast enough for realistic testing on big software loads while still allowing fast-switch to emulation for more detailed debug where… Read More
2020 57thDAC to Co-Locate with SEMICON West!
Probably the most interesting news out of 56thDAC thus far is the announcement that in 2020 and 2021 DAC will co-locate with SEMICON West. It’s great news really since this is something that has been discussed over the years but has been deadlocked due to “failed negotiations”. Unfortunately, simple logic goes out the window with… Read More
Should Intel be Split in Half?