IoT devices have to be connected but power consumption is usually a real concern. If you think about wearables, like for example fitness wristbands, the time between charges could make or break the product. Even if Wi-Fi looks attractive to connect an IoT device, the system developers have quickly realize that the power consumption… Read More
Streamlining Functional Verification for Multi-Die and Chiplet DesignsAs multi-die and chiplet-based system designs become more…Read More
S2C Advances RISC-V Ecosystem, Accelerating Innovation at 2025 Summit ChinaShanghai, July 19, 2025 — S2C, a leader in functional…Read More
Samtec Practical Cable Management for High-Data-Rate SystemsAccording to a recent Samtec whitepaper, in high-data-rate…Read More
A Quick Tour Through Prompt Engineering as it Might Apply to DebugThe immediate appeal of large language models (LLMs)…Read More
What is Inside the iPhone 7?
TSMC is the bellwether for not only the foundry business, since they are the dominant player, but also the semiconductor industry as a whole. You could also argue that TSMC is a sneak peek into the world economy since they build capacity based on their customer’s forecasts and the world now revolves around semiconductors.
The other… Read More
More on HAPS hybrid prototyping for ARMv8 with Linaro
A few weeks ago we previewed a Synopsys webinar describing how they are linking the ARM Juno Development Platform with the HAPS-80 and HAPS ProtoCompiler environment. I’ve had a look at the archived event and have some additional thoughts.… Read More
The Package Assembly Design Kit (PADK)… the start of something big
Integrated wafer-level fanout (WLFO) packaging technology is emerging as a foundation for multi-die solutions. Mobile product applications require focus on both aggressive chip-to-chip interface performance, as well as the final package volume. Traditional multi-chip packages using PCB laminate substrates do not readily… Read More
Foundation IP for Automotive: so Stringent Quality Requirements!
The Automotive IC market is not the largest segment, but is certainly the segments expected to grow with the highest CAGR, with 10.8% from 2013 to 2018, according with IC Insights (January 2015). If you consider the pretty long concept/design to production cycle time (7 years or more) as well as the numerous segments just emerging… Read More
If an Intel 10nm transistor fell in the ARM forest
Intel’s news at IDF this week about partnering with ARM for foundry services on 10nm set off some wild speculation. It’s not a surprise that ARM would enable Intel – they’ve worked together before, ARM is an equal opportunity ecosystem partner, and ARM has publicly announced 10nm cores taped out at TSMC.… Read More
Score 1 for IDMs vs Fabless Intel King of the Photonics Hill in Data Centers
For those of you waiting with baited breath to see the Fabless community with the likes of Broadcom or Qualcomm challenge Intel in the data center space, you were just dealt a significant blow. Intel debuted their long awaited silicon photonics modules for what they called “lightning-fast” connectivity in data centers. Intel … Read More
Why is Jet-Lag Worse Flying East?
Anyone who travels long distances frequently is painfully familiar with this problem, but you may be wondering why I am mentioning it in this forum. The American Institute of Physics has a Chaos journal which looks at interdisciplinary problems in non-linear dynamics and recently published an article on just this topic.
There… Read More
Optimization and verification wins in IoT designs
Designers tend to put tons of energy into pre-silicon verification of SoCs, with millions of dollars on the line if a piece of silicon fails due to a design flaw. Are programmable logic designers, particularly those working with an SoC such as the Xilinx Zynq, flirting with danger by not putting enough effort into verification?… Read More
Semiconductors negative in 2016, positive in 2017
Note: the table and text below have been revised from an earlier post to correct the numbers for STMicroelectronics.
Semiconductor companies posted a wide range of results in 2nd quarter 2016. Intel, Micron Technology and Renesas Electronics all had declines in revenue in 2Q 2016 versus 1Q 2016. Samsung Semiconductor, Qualcomm… Read More
Should the US Government Invest in Intel?