Charlene Marini (VP of ARM Segment Marketing) did a nice presentation at the ARM/Mentor Summit last month at the Mentor HQ in Fremont. I just got the slides so let me give you a quick summary from my notes. It was a very good presentation on IoT and emulation which in my mind is the new simulation. I also attended an IoT panel at #53DAC that… Read More




Why is the IoT Catnip to Hackers?
The latest developments in IoT security will protect the companies that use them from disastrous hacks.Rob Enderle writing in CIO Magazine May 20 about a new security certification for IOT products lauded the new offering and cited other measures that responsible IoT businesses must take to secure the future of their companies.… Read More
Bridging the Gap between Foundry and IC Design at #53DAC
In our semiconductor ecosystem we often specialize the engineers and therefore EDA tools into separate silos like Foundry, front-end design, back-end design, tapeout, etc. What I discovered at #53DAC a few weeks ago was that some EDA companies actually bridge the gap between foundry engineers and IC designers with their tools.… Read More
NVIDIA Extends Their Datacenter Performance Lead In Neural Network Computing
At NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2016 in San Jose, California the company announced products based on their latest GPU architecture, code-named Pascal. This conference is traditionally attended by some of the leading researchers in GPU-accelerated compute technologies and over the past few years has become increasingly… Read More
Webinar alert – ARM and Enea explore NFV
In the Open Source IP panel at 53DAC, we explored the idea of workload-optimized servers. One panelist observation stuck with me: if one chooses to deviate from the Intel-based norm in a data center, you essentially have to spray paint a line around any boxes that don’t comply.… Read More
Semiconductor IP QA Standards Get a Boost at #53DAC
At the #53DAC earlier this month held in Austin, Texas I met up with Renee Donkers, the founder of Fractal Technologies. His company has been focused on improving the quality of semiconductor IP cells through the use of automated checking software. The highest area of growth in EDA as measured by the ESD Alliance is in the reusable… Read More
IBM Fires a Shot at Intel with its Latest POWER Roadmap
In case you worry that IBM will abandon hardware in the pursuit of its strategic initiatives focusing on cloud, mobile, analytics and more; well, stop worrying. With the announcement of its POWER Roadmap at the OpenPOWER Summitearlier this spring, it appears POWER will be around for years to come. But IBM is not abandoning the strategic… Read More
ASML pays $3.1B for Hermes to get E-beam inspection
Cheap versus year ago but expensive on fundementals – Net negative for KLAC/LRCX & AMAT. ASML bought Hermes Microvision for much the same reason as the Cymer acquisition – to support EUV. ASML could have made a counter offer for KLAC (as we had suggested previously) but this obviously would have been much more expensive… Read More
TMR approaches should vary by FPGA type
We’ve introduced the concepts behind triple modular redundancy (TMR) before, using built-in capability in Synopsys Synplify Premier to synthesize TMR circuitry into FPGAs automatically. A recent white paper authored by Angela Sutton revisits the subject… Read More
IC Designers talk about 28nm to 7nm challenges at #53DAC
IC design challenges are different at advanced nodes like 7nm, so to learn more about the topic I attended a panel luncheon at DAC sponsored by Cadence. The moderator was both funny and technically astute, quite the rare combination, so kudos to Professor Rob Rutenbar, a former Neolinear guy now at the University of Illinois. Panelists… Read More
Why I Think Intel 3.0 Will Succeed