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Real men have fabs!

Real men have fabs!
by Claus Aasholm on 04-24-2024 at 8:00 am

Semiconductor Ecosystem

“Real men have fabs” was an insult AMD founder Jerry Sanders hurled at his poor competitors who could not afford to build fabs. A few years later, AMD would be fabless, spinning off its manufacturing facilities as GlobalFoundries. This was the beginning of a transformative period for the industry.

Lisa Su could rightfully retort:

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Fault Sim on Multi-Core Arm Platform in China. Innovation in Verification

Fault Sim on Multi-Core Arm Platform in China. Innovation in Verification
by Bernard Murphy on 04-24-2024 at 6:00 am

Innovation New

How much can running on a multi-core (Arm) CPU speed up fault simulation? Paul Cunningham (GM, Verification at Cadence), Raúl Camposano (Silicon Catalyst, entrepreneur, former Synopsys CTO and now Silvaco CTO) and I continue our series on research ideas. As always, feedback welcome.

The Innovation

This month’s pick is FaultRead More


Huawei’s and SMIC’s Requirement for 5nm Production: Improving Multipatterning Productivity

Huawei’s and SMIC’s Requirement for 5nm Production: Improving Multipatterning Productivity
by Fred Chen on 04-23-2024 at 10:00 am

Self aligned blocking scheme

There has been much interest in Huawei’s and SMIC’s plans for 5nm production in the near future. Since there is no use of EUV in China, immersion DUV lithography (with a 76 nm pitch resolution) is expected to be used along with pitch quartering to achieve pitches in the 20-30 nm range expected for the 5nm and 3nm nodes [1].… Read More


How Secure-IC is Making the Cyber World a Safer Place

How Secure-IC is Making the Cyber World a Safer Place
by Mike Gianfagna on 04-23-2024 at 6:00 am

How Secure IC is Making the Cyber World a Safer Place

Securing the data and all the associated transactions that comprise our hyper-connected world is a daunting task. Security touches the hardware, software and all the channels connecting every device and every transaction. Threats can be embedded in software, hardware or systems can be compromised externally using a large … Read More


Not all Smartphones are Created Equal

Not all Smartphones are Created Equal
by admin on 04-22-2024 at 10:00 am

TechnInsights Semiconductor Sustainability

TechInsights recognizes Earth Day 2024 by lifting the screen on smartphone semiconductor sustainability

Smartphones are typically compared based on screen size, processor speed, and camera resolution. But when TechInsights looked at carbon footprints for manufacturing just the semiconductors of three flagship phones,… Read More


Lifecycle Management, FuSa, Reliability and More for Automotive Electronics

Lifecycle Management, FuSa, Reliability and More for Automotive Electronics
by Bernard Murphy on 04-22-2024 at 6:00 am

Lifecycle Management for Automotive Electronics min

Synopsys recently hosted an information rich-webinar, modestly titled “Improving Quality, FuSa, Reliability, and Security in Automotive Semiconductors”. I think they undersold the event; this was really about managing all of those things through the lifecycle of a car, in line with auto OEMs strategies for the future of the… Read More


Podcast EP219: How Synopsys Addresses Debug and Coverage Closure Challenges with Robert Ruiz

Podcast EP219: How Synopsys Addresses Debug and Coverage Closure Challenges with Robert Ruiz
by Daniel Nenni on 04-19-2024 at 10:00 am

Dan is joined by Robert Ruiz, product management director responsible for strategy and business growth of several verification products at Synopsys. Robert has held various marketing and technical positions for leading functional verification and test automation products at various companies including Synopsys, Novas… Read More


ASML- Soft revenues & Orders – But…China 49% – Memory Improving

ASML- Soft revenues & Orders – But…China 49% – Memory Improving
by Robert Maire on 04-19-2024 at 8:00 am

Fully assembled TWINSCAN EXE 5000

ASML- better EPS but weaker revenues- 2024 recovery on track
China jumps 10% to 49%- Memory looking better @59% of orders
Order lumpiness increases with ASP- EUV will be up-DUV down
“Passing Bottom” of what has been a long down cycle

Weak revenues & orders but OK EPS

Reported revenue was Euro5.3B and EPS of Euro3.11… Read More


Semi Market Decreased by 8% in 2023… When Design IP Sales Grew by 6%!

Semi Market Decreased by 8% in 2023… When Design IP Sales Grew by 6%!
by Eric Esteve on 04-19-2024 at 6:00 am

Top10 Table 2023

Design IP revenues had achieved $7.04B in 2023, with disparity between license, growing by 14% and royalty decreasing by 6%, and main categories. Processor (CPU, DSP, GPU & ISP) slightly growing by 3.4% when Physical (SRAM Memory Compiler, Flash Memory Compiler, Library and I/O, AMS, Wireless Interface) slightly decreasing… Read More


ECO Demo Update from Easy-Logic

ECO Demo Update from Easy-Logic
by Daniel Payne on 04-18-2024 at 10:00 am

EasylogicECO Design Flow

I first met Jimmy Chen from Easy-Logic at #60DAC and wrote about their Engineering Change Order (ECO) tool in August 2023. Recently we had a Zoom call so that I could see a live demo of their EDA tool in action. Allen Guo, the AE Manager for Easy-Logic gave me an overview presentation of the company and some history to provide a bit of context.… Read More