Next week is the Mentor U2U Conference in Silicon Valley. By chance I had coffee with one of the U2U keynote speakers while we were waiting for the FD-SOI Symposium to start last week and can tell you this FREE event is one you don’t want to miss:… Read More




Dr. Evil and On-Chip "LASERS" for Silicon Photonics
In the 1999 comedy, The Spy Who Shagged Me, Dr. Evil laments about why he can’t have sharks with “laser beams” attached to their heads. I get the feeling that silicon photonic designers sometimes feel the same way about why they don’t yet have integrated on-chip laser light sources. While off-chip light… Read More
Single Electron Transistors; the Single Answer?
According to a press release made last year by Gartner, “the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company,” there is projected to be nearly 21 billion internet connected devices by the year 2020 [1]. With the Internet of Things’ ever growing list of network connected devices,… Read More
Intel Dinner Keynote – IOT Solutions: System scaling during the convergence of IT and OT
The Electronic Design Processes (EDP) 2016 Workshop and Symposium, in its 23rd year, has fostered the free exchange of ideas among the top thinkers, movers, and shakers who focus on how chips and systems are designed in the electronics industry. It has provided a forum for this cross-section of the design community to discuss state-of-the-art… Read More
Debugging is the whole point of prototyping
The prototype is obviously the end goal of FPGA-based prototyping, however success of the journey relies on how quickly defects can be found and rectified. Winning in the debug phase involves a combination of methodology, capability, and planning. Synopsys recently aired a webinar on their HAPS environment and its debug ecosystem.… Read More
Singularity, Semiconductors and Software
One of my all-time favorite movies is 2001 A Space Odyssey where one of the leading roles is an AI-based system aboard a spacecraft named Hal that is designed to be a perfect machine yet makes a mistake and then cascades into assaulting and eliminating the human crew members. The future time when semiconductors and software combine… Read More
A CIA Perspective on Privacy and Security
It may seem odd to look to the CIA for viewpoints in this area but in in many ways they are just as concerned as we are. After all, in aggregate, widespread identity theft and hacking both internally and by foreign nationals, theft, electronic ransom and other illicit acts are as much a threat to the security of the country as they are … Read More
Join the Multi-die IC session on April 21 at EDPS 2016 in Monterey, CA
Following Moore’s Law down to 10 or even 7 nm labeled feature size demands US $ hundreds of millions of up-front investment, a very large design team and two or more years of development time. These parameters suggest that it only makes sense for very high volume applications to continue on the shrink path to increase SoCs’ functionalities.… Read More
EDAC Name Changing for ESDA, but what about IP ?
The EDA Consortium (EDAC) has changed name for Electronic Systems Design Alliance (ESD Alliance). That’s a good reminder that IC are developed (thanks to Design Automation) to be integrated into a System. A wide design ecosystem support system development, including embedded software, design intellectual property (IP), … Read More
Self-contained low power Wi-Fi IP for IoT apps
The emerging theme of fit-for-purpose IoT parts gained yet another perspective, this time with ARM and CEVA chiming in on a low-power Wi-Fi approach outlined in a new webinar. It was a rather unique event with an abbreviated 25-minute presentation and an extended 35-minute Q&A that added a lot of insight.… Read More
Why I Think Intel 3.0 Will Succeed