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Semiconductor Equipment Revenues To Drop 17% In 2019 On 29% Capex Spend Cuts

Semiconductor Equipment Revenues To Drop 17% In 2019 On 29% Capex Spend Cuts
by Robert Castellano on 04-25-2019 at 7:00 am

The semiconductor equipment market grew 37.3% in 2017 on the heels of capex spend by memory companies in order to increase bit capacity and move to more sophisticated products with smaller nanometer dimensions. Unfortunately these companies overspent resulting in excessive oversupply of memory chips. As memory prices started… Read More


A Brief History of IP Management

A Brief History of IP Management
by Daniel Nenni on 04-24-2019 at 12:00 pm

As RTL design started to increase in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, it was becoming apparent that some amount of management was needed to keep track of all the design files and their associated versions. Because of the parallels to software development, design teams looked to the tools and methodologies that were in use by software… Read More


Foundational Excellence in a Laid-Back Style

Foundational Excellence in a Laid-Back Style
by Bernard Murphy on 04-24-2019 at 7:00 am

I recently had a call with Rob Dekker, Founder and CTO of Verific. If you’re in EDA or semiconductor CAD, chances are high that you know who they are. They’re king of the hill in parser software for SystemVerilog and VHDL. When you hear a line like that, you assume a heavy dose of marketing spin, but here it really is fact. I don’t know of… Read More


Rambus Take on AI in the Era of Connectivity at Linley Processor Conference

Rambus Take on AI in the Era of Connectivity at Linley Processor Conference
by Camille Kokozaki on 04-23-2019 at 12:00 pm

Steven Woo, Fellow and Distinguished Inventor presented at the just concluded Linley Spring Processor Conference a talk about AI in the Era of Connectivity. As he put it, the world is becoming increasingly connected, with a marked surge of digital data, causing a dependence on said data. With the explosion of digital data and AI,… Read More


IC Implementation Improved by Hyperconvergence of Tools

IC Implementation Improved by Hyperconvergence of Tools
by Daniel Payne on 04-23-2019 at 7:00 am

Physical IC design is a time consuming and error prone process that begs for automation in the form of clever EDA tools that understand the inter-relationships between logic synthesis, IC layout, test and sign-off analysis. There’s even an annual conference called ISPDInternational Symposium on Physical DesignRead More


Customizing and Standardizing IP with eSilicon at the Linley Conference

Customizing and Standardizing IP with eSilicon at the Linley Conference
by Camille Kokozaki on 04-22-2019 at 12:00 pm

During the SoC Design Session at the just concluded Linley Spring Processor Conference in Santa Clara, Carlos Macian, Senior Director AI Strategy and Products at eSilicon, held a talk entitled ‘Opposites Attract: Customizing and Standardizing IP Platforms for ASIC Differentiation’.

Standardization is key to IP in modern … Read More


User2User Silicon Valley 2019

User2User Silicon Valley 2019
by Daniel Nenni on 04-22-2019 at 7:00 am

This will be one of the more interesting Mentor User Group Meetings now that the Siemens acquisition has fully taken effect and the new management team is in place. The Mentor User Conference is at the Santa Clara Marriott, Santa Clara, California on May 2, 2019 from 9:00 am to 6:00pm.

Remember, in 2017 Siemens acquired Mentor Graphics… Read More


Auto Shows No Connection

Auto Shows No Connection
by Roger C. Lanctot on 04-21-2019 at 12:00 pm

The Washington Auto Show, one of the largest auto shows in the U.S., has a problem and it is a problem shared by other auto shows in the U.S. and around the world. It is a problem that plagues the entire industry and it may spell trouble for connecting with car customers.

I visited the Washington Auto Show last week. The event closed on … Read More


A Tale of Two Semis

A Tale of Two Semis
by Robert Maire on 04-21-2019 at 7:00 am

It was the best of times (for stocks)
It was the worst of times (for memory chips)
The disconnect between stock & chip prices

The Venn Diagram of Stocks and Chips

Having been involved with semiconductor and tech stocks for a long time there has always been a loose correlation between the fortunes of the industry and the fortunes… Read More


SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference – Imec and Veeco on EUV

SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference – Imec and Veeco on EUV
by Scotten Jones on 04-19-2019 at 12:00 pm

At the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference Imec presented several papers on EUV and Veeco presented about etching for EUV masks. I had the opportunity to see the presentations and speak with some of the authors. In this article I will summarize the key issues around EUV based on this research.

EUV is ramping up into high volume 7nm… Read More