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Design Rule Development Platform @ #54DAC!

Design Rule Development Platform @ #54DAC!
by Daniel Nenni on 06-12-2017 at 12:00 pm

While some might have expected the exponential growth in design rules number and complexity to cool down a little, it looks as if these are only heating up more. The multiplicity of technology nodes, lithography options, , fundamental technology options (Bulk, FD-SOI, FinFET), different process flavors and specific applications,… Read More


Visual Quality

Visual Quality
by Bernard Murphy on 06-12-2017 at 7:00 am

A few years ago, I started looking at data visualization methods as a way to make sense of large quantities of complex data. This is a technique that has become very popular in big data analytics where it is effectively impossible to see patterns in data in any other way. There are vast numbers of different types of diagram – treemap,… Read More


Cadence Design Systems @ #54DAC!

Cadence Design Systems @ #54DAC!
by Daniel Nenni on 06-11-2017 at 8:00 am

This year Cadence Design Systems is showcasing system design enablement in their booth, capitalizing on the industry shift from naked chip design to system level chip design. Apple started it with making the chips inside the iProducts as part of the system and now other systems companies are looking to take more control over their… Read More


Mentor a Siemens Business @#54thDAC

Mentor a Siemens Business @#54thDAC
by Daniel Nenni on 06-11-2017 at 7:00 am

This year the Mentor booth will be quite interesting now that they are part of Siemens. I expect zero changes to their DAC presence but we shall see. It will certainly be good to see Wally again. More importantly, I will be afforded the opportunity to talk personally with both Wally Rhines, CEO of Mentor ANDChuck Grindstaff executiveRead More


Photonics at DAC – Integrated Electronic/Photonic Design Flow to be Presented at Cadence Theater

Photonics at DAC – Integrated Electronic/Photonic Design Flow to be Presented at Cadence Theater
by Mitch Heins on 06-09-2017 at 12:00 pm


I recently wrote an article on SemiWiki talking about the integrated Electronic/Photonic Design Automation (EPDA) flow that is being developed by Cadence Design Systems, Lumerical Solutions and PhoeniX Software and how that flow is now expanding into the system level through SiP (system in package) techniques.

Up till recently,… Read More


Samsung Details Foundry Roadmap

Samsung Details Foundry Roadmap
by Scotten Jones on 06-09-2017 at 10:00 am

Samsung recently held a meeting where they laid out a detailed roadmap for their foundry business. On Tuesday June 1st, Daniel Nenni and myself had an interview with Kelvin Low, senior director of foundry marketing and business development to discuss the details of Samsung’s plans.… Read More


Simplifying Requirements Tracing

Simplifying Requirements Tracing
by Bernard Murphy on 06-09-2017 at 7:00 am

Requirements traceability is a necessary part of any top-down system specification and design when safety or criticality expectations depend on tightly-defined requirements for subsystems. Traceability in this context means being able to trace from initial documented requirements down through specification and datasheet… Read More


System Implementation Connectivity Verification and Analysis, Including Advanced Package Designs

System Implementation Connectivity Verification and Analysis, Including Advanced Package Designs
by Tom Dillinger on 06-08-2017 at 4:00 pm

Regular Semiwiki readers are aware of the rapid emergence of various (multi-die) advanced package technologies, such as: FOWLP (e.g., Amkor’s SWIFT, TSMC’s InFO); 2D die placement on a rigid substrate (e.g., TSMC’s CoWoS); and, 2.5D “stacked die” with vertical vias (e.g., any of the High Bandwidth Memory,… Read More


CCIX Protocol Push PCI Express 4.0 up to 25G

CCIX Protocol Push PCI Express 4.0 up to 25G
by Eric Esteve on 06-08-2017 at 12:00 pm

The CCIX consortium has developed the Cache Coherent Interconnect for Accelerators (X) protocol. The goal is to support cache coherency, allowing faster and more efficient sharing of memory between processors and accelerators, while utilizing PCIe 4.0 as transport layer. With Ethernet, PCI Express is certainly the most popular… Read More


Active Voice

Active Voice
by Bernard Murphy on 06-08-2017 at 7:00 am

Voice activated control, search, entertainment and other capabilities are building momentum rapidly. This seems inevitable – short of Elon Musk’s direct brain links, the fastest path to communicate intent to a machine is through methods natural to us humans: speech and gestures. And since for most of us speech is a richer… Read More