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ARM TechCon 2018 is Upon Us!

ARM TechCon 2018 is Upon Us!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-12-2018 at 12:00 pm

ARM TechCon is one of the most influential conferences in the semiconductor ecosystem without a doubt. This year ARM TechCon has moved from the Santa Clara Convention Center to the much larger convention center in San Jose. Last year the conference seemed to be busting at the seams so this move makes complete sense. A little less … Read More


EDA Cost and Pricing

EDA Cost and Pricing
by Daniel Nenni on 10-12-2018 at 7:00 am

This is the nineteenth in the series of “20 Questions with Wally Rhines”

When I moved from the semiconductor industry to Mentor, I expected most of my technology and business experience to apply similarly in EDA software. To some extent, that was correct. But there was a fundamental difference that required a change… Read More


How to Increase Energy Efficiency for IoT SoC?

How to Increase Energy Efficiency for IoT SoC?
by Eric Esteve on 10-11-2018 at 12:00 pm

If you have read the white paper recently launched by Dolphin, “New Power Management IP Solution from Dolphin Integration can dramatically increase SoC Energy Efficiency”, you should already know about the theory. This is a good basis to go further and discover some real-life examples, like Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) chip in … Read More


One Less Reason to Delay that Venture

One Less Reason to Delay that Venture
by Bernard Murphy on 10-11-2018 at 7:00 am

Many of us dream about the wonderful widget we could build that would revolutionize our homes, parking, health, gaming, factories or whatever domain gets our creative juices surging, but how many of us take it the next step? Even when you’re ready to live on your savings, prototypes can be expensive and royalties add to the pain. … Read More


Detail-Route-Centric Physical Implementation for 7nm

Detail-Route-Centric Physical Implementation for 7nm
by Alex Tan on 10-10-2018 at 12:00 pm

For many years TSMC has provided IC design implementation guidance as viewed from the process and manufacturing standpoints. The last time TSMC Reference Flow incremented, it was version 12.0 back in 2011. Since then, increased design, process and packaging related complexities of the advanced nodes have demanded more focused… Read More


Crossfire Baseline Checks for Clean IP Part II

Crossfire Baseline Checks for Clean IP Part II
by Daniel Nenni on 10-10-2018 at 7:00 am

In our previous article bearing the same title, we discussed the recommended baseline checks covering cell and pin presence, back-end, and some front-end checks related to functional equivalency. In this article, we’ll cover the extensive list of characterization checks, that include timing arcs, NLDM, CCS, ECSM/EM, and … Read More


Should Companies be Allowed to Hack Back after a Cyberattack?

Should Companies be Allowed to Hack Back after a Cyberattack?
by Matthew Rosenquist on 10-09-2018 at 12:00 pm

Potential for Hack-Back Legislation. Government officials and experts are weighing in on the concept of ‘hacking back’, the practice of potentially allowing U.S. companies to track down cyber attackers and retaliate.

Former head of the CIA and NSA outlined his thoughts to the Fifth Domain on the Hack Back issue currently beingRead More


Closing Coverage in HLS

Closing Coverage in HLS
by Alex Tan on 10-08-2018 at 12:00 pm

Coverage is a common metric with many manifestation. During the ‘90s, both fault and test coverage were mainstream DFT (Design For Testability) terminologies used to indicate the percentage of a design being observable or tested. Its pervasive use was then spilled over into other design segments such as code coverage, formal… Read More


TSMC and Synopsys are in the Cloud!

TSMC and Synopsys are in the Cloud!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-08-2018 at 7:00 am

EDA has been flirting with the cloud unsuccessfully for many years now and it really comes down to a familiar question: Who can afford to spend billions of dollars on data center security? Which is similar to the question that started the fabless transformation: Who can afford to spend billions of dollars on semiconductor manufacturing… Read More