SILVACO 073125 Webinar 800x100

Cadence loads up on MACs for vision with CNNs

Cadence loads up on MACs for vision with CNNs
by Don Dingee on 05-02-2016 at 4:00 pm

For vision DSP IP running convolutional neural networks (CNNs), a big driver of performance is increasing the bits processed per cycle with parallel MACs. Tom Simon did a great job in recent posts of introducing CNNs at a high level, so I’ll look at what is architecturally behind Cadence’s latest announcement: the Tensilica Vision… Read More


How to Deal With Seven Design Closure Issues

How to Deal With Seven Design Closure Issues
by Tom Simon on 05-02-2016 at 12:00 pm

The challenge of tracking design progress is a shared problem for individual designers, team leaders, and project managers. At each level the ability to step back from just reviewing error log files and seeing the arc of the whole design as it moves forward is valuable. The difficulty of seeing the whole picture is exacerbated when… Read More


From Simulation to Emulation: 3 Steps to a Portable SystemVerilog/UVM Testbench

From Simulation to Emulation: 3 Steps to a Portable SystemVerilog/UVM Testbench
by Hans van der Schoot on 05-02-2016 at 7:00 am

If your team is building large, complex designs that require millions of clock cycles to fully verify, you need both simulation and emulation.

Using emulation with simulation accelerates performance for dramatically reduced run times.Read More


Mind The Gap – Boarding the Silicon Photonics Packaging Train

Mind The Gap – Boarding the Silicon Photonics Packaging Train
by Mitch Heins on 05-01-2016 at 8:00 pm


I’ve been doing a lot of reading on silicon photonics lately and I’ve come to realize that while there is much written on the development of individual silicon photonic components and devices (modulators, photo detectors, optical amplifiers and such) that much of the cost and therefore chances of economic success… Read More


Why Should Companies Care about Internet of Things Services?

Why Should Companies Care about Internet of Things Services?
by Bill McCabe on 05-01-2016 at 4:00 pm

As with any new technology, businesses will need to find quantifiable benefits in the Internet of Things before the concept is embraced and implemented. It could be argued that connected devices are already being adopted on a wide scale: companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Qualcomm, IBM, and others already see IoT as a core part … Read More


Semiconductor capital spending slow in 2016

Semiconductor capital spending slow in 2016
by Bill Jewell on 05-01-2016 at 12:00 pm

The outlook for semiconductor capital expenditures (capex) in 2016 is weak. Gartner’s January 2016 forecast called for a decline of 4.7%. IC Insights in February projected a 0.8% decline. The table below shows the Gartner forecast along with the capex forecasts from the top three spenders (Intel, Samsung and TSMC) which… Read More


Qualcomm’s New X16 LTE Modem Delivers Gigabit LTE And A Scalable Architecture

Qualcomm’s New X16 LTE Modem Delivers Gigabit LTE And A Scalable Architecture
by Patrick Moorhead on 05-01-2016 at 7:00 am

Qualcomm has been the global unit and revenue market share leader for years in modem technologies used in smartphones, tablets, PCs and IoT (Internet of Things). One of the reasons they have maintained this lead for so long is that they are typically first to market with new generations of modems. Today at their investor conference,… Read More


Are Layoffs Good for the Semiconductor Industry?

Are Layoffs Good for the Semiconductor Industry?
by Daniel Nenni on 04-30-2016 at 7:00 am

As I have mentioned before, semiconductor professionals are very smart people, pound for pound the smartest in the workforce in my opinion. So what happens when thousands of engineers from Qualcomm, Broadcom, Altera, and Intel get shown the door? They don’t go to work for Starbucks, they don’t go to the unemployment line, they … Read More


Why I’ll Always Be an Andy Grove Fan

Why I’ll Always Be an Andy Grove Fan
by Martin Lund on 04-29-2016 at 4:00 pm

Silicon Valley sadly lost a respected and revered leader with the death of Andrew Grove in March. The co-founder and former CEO of Intel was an inspiration to generations of technologists and business leaders, including me. Andy had a profound influence on me throughout my career. And while I only met him once, I feel as though I’ve… Read More


Ecosystem Partnership for Effective Network Hardware Design

Ecosystem Partnership for Effective Network Hardware Design
by Bernard Murphy on 04-29-2016 at 12:00 pm

When you’re designing a hardware solution to plug into what is arguably the most complex system of all – the Internet – you can’t get away with a little fake traffic to test whether your box is going to do all the right things at the right performance. You have to model realistic voice, video, data and wireless traffic in… Read More