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Applying EDA Concepts Outside Chip Design

Applying EDA Concepts Outside Chip Design
by Bernard Murphy on 10-11-2015 at 7:00 am

(I changed the title of this piece as an experiment) Paul McLellan recently wrote on the topic of new ventures crossing the chasm (getting from initial but bounded success to a proven scalable business). That got me to thinking about the EDA market in general. In some ways it has a similar problem, stuck at $5B or so and single-digit… Read More


S2C ships UltraScale empowering SoFPGA

S2C ships UltraScale empowering SoFPGA
by Don Dingee on 10-10-2015 at 7:00 am

Most of the discussion around Xilinx UltraScale parts in FPGA-based prototyping modules has been on capacity, and that is certainly a key part of the story. Another use case is developing, one that may be even more important than simply packing a bigger design into a single part without partitioning. The real win with this technology… Read More


Processors Rule the Day

Processors Rule the Day
by Tom Simon on 10-09-2015 at 7:00 pm

It used to be that if you went to a processor conference, you could expect to spend hours listening to talks about pipelining, cache schemes and processor architecture. Well, I went to the Linley Processor Conference this week in Santa Clara and found the topics pretty compelling. Processors are in just about everything. It is easier… Read More


Five Areas at #53DAC That Require Your Contribution

Five Areas at #53DAC That Require Your Contribution
by Daniel Payne on 10-09-2015 at 12:00 pm

The 53rd DAC (Design Automation Conference) is some 8 months away, however to make this conference and exhibit another success requires planning, people and awareness. That’s where you come in, because you can contribute your expertise in five different areas:

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  • Panels – broad interest, interesting, timely,
  • Read More

    IMEC and Cadence Disclose 5nm Test Chip

    IMEC and Cadence Disclose 5nm Test Chip
    by Scotten Jones on 10-09-2015 at 7:00 am

    Recently imec and Cadence disclosed that they had fabricated 5nm test chips. This afternoon Dan Nenni and I had a conference call with Praveen Raghavan, principal engineer at imec, and Vassilios Gerousis, distinguished engineer at Cadence to get more details on what the test chip is and what was learned.

    First off Vassilios really… Read More


    BATTERYGATE: Is Apple’s Samsung made iPhone 6S Core Rotten?

    BATTERYGATE: Is Apple’s Samsung made iPhone 6S Core Rotten?
    by Robert Maire on 10-08-2015 at 4:00 pm

    By this time, anyone with a pulse in the tech industry knows that Apple has dual sourced the A9 processor for the Iphone 6S, from both Samsung and TSMC. There are even apps to tell whether your 6S has a Samsung or TSMC part in it. People have run performance comparisons and concluded that the processing performance is the same, which … Read More


    Cadence Outlines Automotive Solutions at TSMC OIP Event

    Cadence Outlines Automotive Solutions at TSMC OIP Event
    by Tom Simon on 10-08-2015 at 12:00 pm

    I used to joke that my first car could survive a nuclear war. It was a 1971 Volvo sedan (142) that was EMP proof because it had absolutely no semiconductors in the ignition system, just points, condensers and a coil. If you go back to the Model T in 1915 you will see that the “on-board electronics” were not that different. However, today’s… Read More


    UFS or NVMe in Smartphone? See Apple’s answer!

    UFS or NVMe in Smartphone? See Apple’s answer!
    by Eric Esteve on 10-08-2015 at 7:00 am

    There should be a link between iPhone H/W architecture and the incredible success of the product? Let’s assume and claim that this architecture, based on the internally developed ARM based A9 application processor, is simply the best on the market today…

    Apple has implemented SSD in MacBook based on NVM Express (NVMe) protocol.… Read More


    Dinner with the Man who is Reshaping the Semiconductor Industry!

    Dinner with the Man who is Reshaping the Semiconductor Industry!
    by Daniel Nenni on 10-07-2015 at 4:00 pm

    The recent mega acquisition of Broadcom Corp by Avago can be traced all the way back to Silicon Valley stalwart Hewlett Packard (founded in a two car Palo Alto garage in 1939). Even more interesting is the man behind the acquisition and how he got to where he is today.Avago began as the semiconductor products division of HP in 1961, … Read More


    Coventor prepping MEMS for CMOS integration

    Coventor prepping MEMS for CMOS integration
    by Don Dingee on 10-07-2015 at 12:00 pm

    About 11 months ago, I wrote a piece titled “Money for data and your MEMS for free.” In that, I took on the thinking that TSMC is just going to ride into town, fab trillions of IoT sensors, and they all will be 2.6 cents ten years from now. Good headline, but the technology and economics are not that simple. This may be the semiconductor … Read More