The classical problem every MBA student studies is manufacturing resource planning (MRP II). It quickly illustrates that at the system level, good throughput is not necessarily the result of combining fast individual tasks when shared bottlenecks and order dependency are involved. Modern SoC architecture, particularly … Read More
Siemens EDA Unveils Groundbreaking Tools to Simplify 3D IC Design and AnalysisIn a major announcement at the 2025 Design…Read More
CEO Interview with Faraj Aalaei of CognichipFaraj Aalaei is a successful visionary entrepreneur with…Read More
Rethink Scoreboards to Supercharge AI-Era CPUsBy Dr. Thang Minh Tran, CEO/CTO Simplex Micro…Read More
Jitter: The Overlooked PDN Quality MetricBruce Caryl is a Product Specialist with Siemens EDA…Read More
CEO Interview with Vamshi Kothur, of Tuple TechnologiesIt was my pleasure to meet with Vamshi…Read More
Of Steering Wheels and Buggy Whips
At the heart of automated driving is control of the steering wheel, gas and brake pedals in the car. Based on NHTSA’s recently negotiated agreement with car makers, those selling cars in the U.S. will add automatic emergency braking to their cars by 2022. So it seems that we humans are already ceding control of the brake pedal.… Read More
Waze May Not Be So Evil After All
In contrast to the opinions in a recent article here, I think Waze is extremely beneficial to the individuals who use it, other drivers – by virtue of more efficient road usage, and the various jurisdictions that oversee roads and highways. For those not familiar with Waze, it is a smartphone app that provides navigation and… Read More
One, Two, Many – Why You May Not Be Replaced By A Robot
Some aboriginal tribes in Australia see little value in counting and are believed to discriminate only between “one”, “two” and “many”. This is not through lack of intelligence; beyond two they simply lose interest in the details. We can smile and feel superior but I suspect we are not much better when it comes to predicting our technology… Read More
Analog Mixed-Signal Layout in a FinFET World
The intricacies of analog IP circuit design have always required special consideration during physical layout. The need for optimum device and/or cell matching on critical circuit topologies necessitates unique layout styles. The complex lithographic design rules of current FinFET process nodes impose additional restrictions… Read More
Key Takeaways from the TSMC Technology Symposium Part 1
TSMC recently held their annual Technology Symposium in San Jose, a full-day event with a detailed review of their semiconductor process and packaging technology roadmap, and (risk and high-volume manufacturing) production schedules.… Read More
Internet of Things Augmented Reality Applications Insights from Patents
US20150347850 illustrates an IoT (Internet of Things) AR (Augmented Reality) application in a smart home. A smart home IoT device communicates via a local network to a user AR device (e.g., smartphone) for providing the tracking data. The tracking data describes the smart home IoT device. The AR devices can recognize the smart… Read More
How HBM Will Change SOC Design
High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) promises to do for electronic product design what high-rise buildings did for cities. Up until now, electronic circuits have suffered from the equivalent of suburban sprawl. HBM is a radical transformation of memory architecture that will have huge ripple effects on how SOC based electronics are … Read More
Can Qualcomm avoid repeating Motorola’s fate?
NPR had an interesting guest this morning: Edward Luce, author of “Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent”. I’m not about to turn SemiWiki into a politics blog, but there is some precedent in the technology business. I’ve caught myself saying more than once recently that “Motorola is no longer the company I worked 14… Read More
Custom IC Design Flow with OpenAccess
Imagine being able to use any combination of EDA vendor tools for schematic capture, SPICE circuit simulation, layout editing, place & route, DRC, LVS and extraction. On the foundry side, how about creating just a single Process Development Kit (PDK), instead of vendor-specific kits. Well, this is the basic premise of a recent… Read More
Facing the Quantum Nature of EUV Lithography