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ISS Gary Patton Keynote: FD-SOI, FinFETS, and Beyond!

ISS Gary Patton Keynote: FD-SOI, FinFETS, and Beyond!
by Scotten Jones on 01-28-2017 at 12:00 pm

Two weeks ago the SEMI ISS Conference was held at Half Moon Bay in California. On the opening day of the conference Gary Patton CTO of GLOBALFOUNDRIES gave the keynote address and I also had the chance to sit down with Gary for an interview the next day.

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SoC Integration using IP Lifecycle Management Methodology

SoC Integration using IP Lifecycle Management Methodology
by Daniel Payne on 01-27-2017 at 12:00 pm

Small EDA companies often focus on a single point tool and then gradually over time they add new, complementary tools to start creating more of a sub-flow to help you get that next SoC project out on time. The most astute EDA companies often choose to partner with other like-minded companies to create tools that work together well,… Read More


Timing Closure Complexity Mounts at FinFET Nodes

Timing Closure Complexity Mounts at FinFET Nodes
by Tom Simon on 01-27-2017 at 7:00 am

Timing closure is the perennial issue in digital IC design. While the specific problem that has needed to be solved to achieve timing closure over the decades has continuously changed, it has always been a looming problem. And the timing closure problem has gotten more severe with 16/14nm FinFET SoCs due to greater distances between… Read More


The Nannification of Tesla

The Nannification of Tesla
by Roger C. Lanctot on 01-26-2017 at 12:00 pm

I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down with executives of large companies and startups who have tried to get me excited about geo-fencing. Geo-fencing is a clever little technology that can allow a device maker to restrict access to a device, service or content when that system roams beyond a particular zone of acceptable… Read More


AAPl Vs QCOM Who wins?

AAPl Vs QCOM Who wins?
by Daniel Nenni on 01-26-2017 at 7:00 am

Things just got interesting in the iPhone supply chain with the $1B AAPL Vs QCOM legal action filed this week. For the life of me I could not understand why Apple second sourced the normally QCOM modem in the iPhone 7. It caused quite a stir in the technical community but we could only surmise that it was a price issue on the business side.… Read More


Power Management Beyond the Edge

Power Management Beyond the Edge
by Bernard Murphy on 01-25-2017 at 7:00 am

Power in IoT edge devices gets a lot of press around how to make devices last for years on a single battery charge, significantly through “dark silicon” – turning on only briefly to perform some measurement and shoot off a wireless transmission before turning off again. But we tend to forget that the infrastructure to support… Read More


Mentor Safe Program Rounds Out Automotive Position

Mentor Safe Program Rounds Out Automotive Position
by Bernard Murphy on 01-24-2017 at 7:00 am

Mentor has an especially strong position in the automotive space given their broad span of embedded, SoC, mechanical and thermal and system design tools. Of course, these days demonstrating ISO 26262 compliance is mandatory for semiconductor and systems suppliers, so EDA vendors need to play their part to support those suppliers… Read More


Qorvo and KeySight to Present on Managing Collaboration for Multi-site, Multi-vendor RF Design

Qorvo and KeySight to Present on Managing Collaboration for Multi-site, Multi-vendor RF Design
by Mitch Heins on 01-23-2017 at 12:00 pm

Over the last several weeks I’ve been having a lot of discussions with colleagues around IP reuse and design data management. This led me to a discussion with Ranjit Adhikary, Marketing Vice President for ClioSoft.

ClioSoft is best known for their design collaboration software platform called SOS. They also sell an enterprise… Read More


DARPA Flex Logix and TSMC!

DARPA Flex Logix and TSMC!
by Daniel Nenni on 01-23-2017 at 10:00 am

When I first saw emerging semiconductor IP company Flex Logix actively involved with TSMC I knew something big was coming and boy was I right. DARPA announced today that an agreement is in place with Flex Logix to develop EFLX eFPGA technology on TSMC 16FFC for use by companies or Government agencies designing chips for the US Government.… Read More