Synopsys IP Designs Edge AI 800x100

The Rebirth of Dolphin Integration!

The Rebirth of Dolphin Integration!
by Eric Esteve on 09-10-2018 at 7:00 am

You may have seen this Press Release (see below) announcing that Dolphin Integration (Dolphin) has been acquired by Soitec (60%) and MBDA (40%) – you can see more information about these two companies at the bottom of this blog. Founded in 1985, Dolphin had some recurrent cash flow issues during the last couple of years, that they… Read More


Is the Q4 Bounce Back now a 2009 Recovery?

Is the Q4 Bounce Back now a 2009 Recovery?
by Robert Maire on 09-10-2018 at 7:00 am

Last week saw a unique confluence of events that continue the negative news flow in semicap following the story about GloFo. At a financial conference, Micron’s CFO said NAND prices were declining, this was on top of an analyst note in the morning about the same issue. Even though this should be no surprise as memory has had … Read More


Mentor Graphics Makes a Transition

Mentor Graphics Makes a Transition
by Daniel Nenni on 09-07-2018 at 12:00 pm

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

I joined Mentor Graphics (now Mentor, A Siemens Business), in late 1993. Tom Engibous, one of my direct reporting people at TI, was promoted to replace me as head of the Semiconductor business of TI and I moved on to what I knew would be a real challenge,… Read More


Turnkey 2.5D HBM2 Custom SoC SiP Solution for Deep Learning and Networking Applications

Turnkey 2.5D HBM2 Custom SoC SiP Solution for Deep Learning and Networking Applications
by Daniel Nenni on 09-07-2018 at 7:00 am

Before we jump into the specifics, let us understand what’s driving custom solutions in the high performance computing and networking space. It’s the growing demand for core capacity and greater performance, which is due to the increase in the level of parallelism and multitasking required to handle the enormous amount of data… Read More


A Fresh Idea in Differential Energy Analysis

A Fresh Idea in Differential Energy Analysis
by Bernard Murphy on 09-06-2018 at 7:00 am

When I posted earlier on Qualcomm presenting with ANSYS on differential energy analysis, I assumed this was just the usual story on RTL power estimation being more accurate for relative estimation between different implementations. I sold them short. This turned out to be a much more interesting methodology for optimizing total… Read More


Accelerating Design and Manufacturing at the 25th Annual IEEE Electronic Design Process Symposium

Accelerating Design and Manufacturing at the 25th Annual IEEE Electronic Design Process Symposium
by Camille Kokozaki on 09-05-2018 at 12:00 pm

25th annual IEEE Electronic Design Process Symposium
Accelerating Design and Manufacturing
September 13 & 14, 2018, SEMI, 673 S. Milpitas Blvd, Milpitas, CA 95035

This year marks a milestone in EDPS’s history as it turns 25. The event will be held at SEMI’s new headquarter facility and will provide a forum for EDA, foundry … Read More


Unhackable Product Claims are a Fiasco Waiting to Happen

Unhackable Product Claims are a Fiasco Waiting to Happen
by Matthew Rosenquist on 09-05-2018 at 7:00 am

Those who think that that technology can be made ‘unhackable’, don’t comprehend the overall challenges and likely don’t understand what ‘hacked’ means.

Trust is the currency of security. We all want our technology to be dependable, easy to use, and secure. It is important to understand both the benefits
Read More


USB 3.x IP Revenue Have Grown by 31% in 2017 (IPnest)

USB 3.x IP Revenue Have Grown by 31% in 2017 (IPnest)
by Eric Esteve on 09-04-2018 at 12:00 pm

Despite the strong consolidation in the semiconductor industry, the Design IP market is going well, very well with YoY growth of 12%+ in 2017, according with the “Design IP Report” from IPnest. If we look at the Interface IP category (20% growth in 2017) and analyze the IP revenues by protocols, we can see that USB IP is amazingly healthy,… Read More


The Ever-Changing ASIC Business

The Ever-Changing ASIC Business
by Daniel Nenni on 09-04-2018 at 7:00 am

The cell-based ASIC business that we know today was born in the early 1980s and was pioneered by companies like LSI Logic and VLSI Technology. Some of this history is covered in Chapter 2 of our book, “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry”. The ASIC business truly changed the world. Prior to this revolution,… Read More