Banner 800x100 0810

Tools for Advanced Packaging Design Follow Moore’s Law, Too!

Tools for Advanced Packaging Design Follow Moore’s Law, Too!
by Tom Dillinger on 06-05-2017 at 9:00 am

There is an emerging set of advanced packaging technologies that enables unique product designs, with the capability to integrate multiple die, from potentially heterogeneous technologies. These “system-in-package” (SiP) offerings provide architects with the opportunity to optimize product performance, power, cost,… Read More


An InFormal Chat

An InFormal Chat
by Bernard Murphy on 06-05-2017 at 7:00 am

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, as the saying goes. Which is all very well when the purpose is entertainment or serving the arcane skills of a select priesthood, but it’s not a good way to grow a market. Then you want to dispel the magic aura, make the basic mechanics more accessible to a wider… Read More


Margin Call

Margin Call
by Bernard Murphy on 06-04-2017 at 7:00 am

A year ago, I wrote about Ansys’ intro of Big Data methods into the world of power integrity analysis. The motivation behind this advance was introduced in another blog, questioning how far margin-based approaches to complex multi-dimensional analyses could go. An accurate analysis of power integrity in a complex chip should… Read More


Memory drives semiconductor boom in 2017

Memory drives semiconductor boom in 2017
by Bill Jewell on 06-03-2017 at 7:00 am

The semiconductor market was down 0.4% in first quarter 2017 from 4Q 2016 and up 18.1% from a year ago, according to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS). The 0.4% decline in 1Q 2017 versus 4Q 2016 is strong compared to an average 4% decline from 4Q to 1Q over the previous five years. The relative strength in 1Q 2017 was driven… Read More


Is ARC HS4xD Family More a CPU or DSP IP Core?

Is ARC HS4xD Family More a CPU or DSP IP Core?
by Eric Esteve on 06-02-2017 at 4:00 pm

When I had to define the various IP categories (processor, analog & mixed-signal, wired interfaces, etc.) to build the Design IP Report, I scratched my head for a while about the processor main category: how to define the sub-categories? Not that long ago, it was easy to identify a CPU IP core and a DSP IP core. As of today, if a DSP… Read More


AIM Photonics Catching Its Stride as They Move into 2nd Year

AIM Photonics Catching Its Stride as They Move into 2nd Year
by Mitch Heins on 06-02-2017 at 7:00 am

AIM Photonics held its 2017 Proposers Meetings on May 24[SUP]th[/SUP] in Rochester, NY. The meetings included a review of AIM’s progress and strategic direction by their TRB (technical review board) and a session targeted at PIC (photonic integrated circuit) design for multi-project wafer (MPW) runs. While these discussions… Read More


Getting to IP Functional Signoff

Getting to IP Functional Signoff
by Bernard Murphy on 06-01-2017 at 7:00 am

In the early days of IP reuse and platform-based design there was a widely-shared vision of in-house IP development teams churning out libraries of reusable IP, which could then be leveraged in many different SoC applications. This vision was enthusiastically pursued for a while; this is what drove reusability standards and … Read More


Embedded FPGA IP update — 2nd generation architecture, TSMC 16FFC, and a growing customer base

Embedded FPGA IP update — 2nd generation architecture, TSMC 16FFC, and a growing customer base
by Tom Dillinger on 05-31-2017 at 12:00 pm

Regular Semiwiki readers are aware that embedded FPGA (eFPGA) IP development is a rapidly growing (and evolving) technical area. The applications for customizable and upgradeable logic in the field are many and diverse — as a result, improved performance, greater configurable logic capacity/density, and comprehensive… Read More


RTL Correct by Construction

RTL Correct by Construction
by Bernard Murphy on 05-31-2017 at 7:00 am

Themes in EDA come in waves and a popular theme from time to time is RTL signoff. That’s a tricky concept; you can’t signoff RTL in the sense of never having to go back and change the RTL. But the intent is still valuable – to get the top-level or subsystem-level RTL as well tested as possible, together with collateral data (SDC, UPF, etc)… Read More