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Digital Design Trends – A Cadence Perspective

Digital Design Trends – A Cadence Perspective
by Bernard Murphy on 04-21-2016 at 7:00 am

I talked with Paul Cunningham (VP front-end digital R&D) at CDNLive recently to get a Cadence perspective on digital design trends. He sees needs from traditional semiconductor companies evolving as usual, with disruption here and there from consolidation. But on the system side there is explosion in demand – for wearables,… Read More


Cross-viewing improves ASIC & FPGA debug efficiency

Cross-viewing improves ASIC & FPGA debug efficiency
by Don Dingee on 04-20-2016 at 4:00 pm

We introduced the philosophy behind the Blue Pearl Software suite of tools for front-end analysis of ASIC & FPGA designs in a recent post. As we said in that discussion, effective automation helps find and remedy issues as each re-synthesis potentially turns up new defects. Why do Blue Pearl users say their tool suite is easier… Read More


Top Mobile OEM Uses NetSpeed to Boost Its Next Gen Application Processor

Top Mobile OEM Uses NetSpeed to Boost Its Next Gen Application Processor
by Eric Esteve on 04-20-2016 at 12:00 pm

The smartphone segment is certainly the most competitive market for chip makers today and the yearly product launch cadence puts a lot of pressure on the application processor design cycle. End-users expect to benefit from higher image definition, better sound quality, ever faster and more complex applications which push the… Read More


The Semicon Industry Keeps Wafer Fabs Moving Up

The Semicon Industry Keeps Wafer Fabs Moving Up
by Pawan Fangaria on 04-20-2016 at 7:00 am

The worldwide revenue of semiconductor industry has remained flat in last few years; to be more precise, overall semiconductor revenue declined by 1.9% in 2015 and Gartner forecasts it to further decline by 0.6% in 2016. The total revenue was at record high of $340.3 billion in 2014.

Well, semiconductor industry has matured. A … Read More


ARM and FD-SOI are like Peanut Butter and Jelly!

ARM and FD-SOI are like Peanut Butter and Jelly!
by Daniel Nenni on 04-19-2016 at 4:00 pm

When I first heard about a foundry possibly licensing FD-SOI I would have bet it was SMIC in China. What better market for a low cost, low power, easy to manufacture alternative to FinFETs? The foundry of course was Samsung which also made complete sense since they have 28nm gate-first capacity that matches up nicely to 28nm FD-SOI.… Read More


IOT Security Trends – Is the online world more dangerous??

IOT Security Trends – Is the online world more dangerous??
by Bill McCabe on 04-19-2016 at 12:00 pm

Security threats are the biggest concern among the main concerns on the Internet of Things. Due to its very nature, it is a target of interest for those who want to commit either industrial or national espionage. By hacking into these systems and putting them under a denial of service, or other attacks, an entire network of systems… Read More


A Versatile Design Platform with Multi-Language APIs

A Versatile Design Platform with Multi-Language APIs
by Pawan Fangaria on 04-19-2016 at 7:00 am

In one of my whitepapers “SoCs in New Context – Look beyond PPA”, I had mentioned about several considerations which have become very important in addition to power, performance, and area (PPA) of an SoC. This whitepaper was also posted in parts as blogs on Semiwiki (links are mentioned below). Two important… Read More


Get ready for hypergrade in automotive

Get ready for hypergrade in automotive
by Don Dingee on 04-18-2016 at 4:00 pm

With use cases expanding, the meaning of “automotive qualified” semiconductors is changing. What we’re now hearing about now is beyond the AEC-Q100 Grade 0 upper end of 150°C, while still meeting other reliability, retention, and security requirements. What does hypergrade mean for complex digital chip… Read More


More on the Practical Uses of Automation

More on the Practical Uses of Automation
by Bernard Murphy on 04-18-2016 at 12:00 pm

There’s a good article in the March issue of the Communications of the ACM which follows a theme I commented in my “One, Two Many” post. But the CACM article has a better title: “Automation should be like Iron Man, not Ultron”.

For anyone who hasn’t seen the movies, Iron Man is a man (Tony Stark)… Read More


A Better Way for Analog Designers to Perform Variation Analysis

A Better Way for Analog Designers to Perform Variation Analysis
by Tom Dillinger on 04-18-2016 at 7:00 am

The impact of process variation at advanced nodes is increasing — no surprise there. In recent years, the principal design emphasis to better reflect this variation has been the adoption of two new methodologies: (1) advanced on-chip variation (AOCV, as well as POCV/LVF) for digital static timing analysis, and (2) advanced… Read More