The topic of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) conjures up images of usage on airplanes, tanks and cars. That’s because it was developed decades ago to help make product development and delivery more efficient for big expensive manufactured products. It worked well for its intended markets by combining and managing all the … Read More




Multiple Facets of Cyber Security Workshop!
Security is one of the new categories we track and it is keeping SemiWiki very busy. Security in itself, as a result of the FBI vs Apple comedy routine, but also security across the EDA, IP, ARM, Mobile, IoT, and Automotive categories. … Read More
2.5D supply chain takes HBM over the wall
SoC designers have hit the memory wall head on. Although most SoCs address a relatively small memory capacity compared with PC and server chips, memory power consumption and bandwidth are struggling to keep up with processing and content expectations. A recent webinar looks at HBM as a possible solution.… Read More
Neural Networks Poised to Make Big Changes in Our World
Probably the most interesting thing about Neural Networks is how they can be used for complex recognition tasks that we as people can easily perform but we might have a lot of trouble explaining how. One very good example of a problem that Neural Networks can tackle is determining when people are making a fake smile. Intuitively we… Read More
Custom Layout Productivity Gets a Boost
In the 1970’s, when Moore’s Law was still in its infancy, Bill Lattin from Intel published a landmark paper [1]. In it he identified the need for new design tools and methods to improve layout productivity, which he defined as the drawn and verified number of transistors per day per layout designer. He said existing … Read More
Silicon Photonics – Back to the Future – Part Deux?
I cut my teeth in silicon IC design at Texas Instruments during the early 1980’s working on what would eventually become the ASIC and Fabless IC industries that enabled the explosive growth of the electronics industry over the last three decades. Of late I’ve become involved in the silicon photonics space and I am getting an incredible… Read More
Hyundai Artificial Intelligence Connected Car Insights from Patents
Hyundai announced its plan to develop smart car implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and V2X (vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I)) communication capability. US9159231 illustrates that Hyundai smart car will collect and transmit neighboring traffic information through the V2V communication.… Read More
Roger Rabbit Redux – Self-Driving Car Edition
With General Motors investing $500M in Lyft and buying Cruise Automation (aftermarket self-driving car technology) for $1B, there are some people speculating that the company may be recreating its mid-prior-century effort to monopolize mass transportation. In the 1940’s, National City Lines and Pacific City Lines,… Read More
The Importance of Transistor-Level Verification
According to the IEEE Std 1012-2012, verification is the acknowledgement that a product is in satisfactory condition by meeting a set of rigorous criteria. [3] Transistor-level verification involves the use of custom libraries and design models to achieve ultimate performance, low power, or layout density. [2] Prediction… Read More
Book Review Mobile Unleashed The History of ARM
After having taken a closer look at x86 processor with “Inside The Machine” I came across “Mobile Unleashed“, a book about the history of a non-Silicon Valley company and technology for a change that has significantly shaped the world of computing as we know it today: ARM.
Written by Daniel Nenni and Don Dingee the book tells the story… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot