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PCB Design in the Cloud

PCB Design in the Cloud
by Daniel Payne on 02-28-2018 at 12:00 pm

I remember meeting John Durbetaki at Intel where we both worked in 1980, it was an exciting time and something called the Personal Computer had just been introduced by companies like Commodore, Apple and Radio Shack (yes, Radio Shack). IBM was rather late to the party with their PC in 1981, however when IBM entered the market then … Read More


CEO Interview: Rene Donkers of Fractal Technologies

CEO Interview: Rene Donkers of Fractal Technologies
by Daniel Nenni on 02-28-2018 at 7:00 am

We (SemiWiki) have been working with Fractal for close to five years now publishing 25 blogs that have garnered more than 100,000 views. Generally speaking QA people are seen as the unsung heroes of EDA since the only time you really hear about them is when something goes wrong and a tapeout is delayed or a chip is respun.

FinFETs really… Read More


Hardware Configuration Management – A Key Enabler for Startups & Big Companies Alike

Hardware Configuration Management – A Key Enabler for Startups & Big Companies Alike
by Mitch Heins on 02-27-2018 at 12:00 pm

Software configuration management (SCM) has been around for a long time with commercial SCM offerings such as ClearCase and Perforce and public domain mainstays such as CVS and Subversion. Similarly, over the last two decades we’ve seen a big uptake in the adoption of hardware configuration management (HCM) methodologies driven… Read More


Connecting Coherence

Connecting Coherence
by Bernard Murphy on 02-27-2018 at 7:00 am

If a CPU or CPU cluster in an SoC is the brain of an SoC, then the interconnect is the rest of the central nervous system, connecting all the other processing and IO functions to that brain. This interconnect must enable these functions to communicate with the brain, with multiple types of memory, and with each other as quickly and predictably… Read More


Developing Affordable IoT Systems

Developing Affordable IoT Systems
by Daniel Payne on 02-26-2018 at 12:00 pm

The IoT market opportunities in segments like wearables, vehicles, home, cities and industrial are all growing thanks to the combination of semiconductors, sensors, software and systems technology. New hardware designs for IoT edge devices appear on a daily basis, and the companies behind these new products can often be start-ups… Read More


The hierarchical architecture of an embedded FPGA

The hierarchical architecture of an embedded FPGA
by Tom Dillinger on 02-26-2018 at 7:00 am

The most powerful approach to managing the complexity of current SoC hardware is the identification of hierarchical instances with which to assemble the design. The development of the hierarchical design representation requires judicious assessment of the component definitions. The goals for clock distribution, power … Read More


LithoVision 2018 The Evolving Semiconductor Technology Landscape and What it Means for Lithography

LithoVision 2018 The Evolving Semiconductor Technology Landscape and What it Means for Lithography
by Scotten Jones on 02-25-2018 at 5:00 pm

I was invited to present at Nikon’s LithoVision event held the day before the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference in San Jose. The following is a write up of the talk I gave. In this talk I discuss the three main segments in the semiconductor industry, NAND, DRAM and Logic and how technology transitions will affect lithography.… Read More


First Line of Defense for Cybersecurity: AI

First Line of Defense for Cybersecurity: AI
by Ahmed Banafa on 02-25-2018 at 7:00 am

The year 2017 wasn’t a great year for cyber-security; we saw a large number of high-profile cyber attacks; including Uber, Deloitte, Equifax and the now infamous WannaCry ransomware attack, and 2018 started with a bang too with the hackingof Winter Olympics. The frightening truth about increasingly cyber-attacks is … Read More


Herb Reiter on the Challenges of 2.5D ASIC SiPs

Herb Reiter on the Challenges of 2.5D ASIC SiPs
by Daniel Nenni on 02-23-2018 at 12:00 pm

Years ago my good friend Herb Reiter promoted the importance of 2.5D packaging to anybody and everybody who would listen including myself. Today Herb’s vision is in production and the topic of many papers, webinars, and conferences. According to Herb, and I agree completely, advanced IC packaging is an important technology for… Read More


An AI assist for 5G enhanced Mobile Broadband for mobile platforms

An AI assist for 5G enhanced Mobile Broadband for mobile platforms
by Bernard Murphy on 02-23-2018 at 7:00 am

If you’re not up-to-speed on 5G, there are three use-cases: eMBB(enhanced mobile broadband) for mobile platforms (Gbps rates, immersive gaming, VR, AR – spectrum usage also extends up to mmWave, but that’s a different topic), mMTCfor massive machine type communication (ultra-low cost, ultra-low power, very dense networks)… Read More