In our semiconductor ecosystem we often specialize the engineers and therefore EDA tools into separate silos like Foundry, front-end design, back-end design, tapeout, etc. What I discovered at #53DAC a few weeks ago was that some EDA companies actually bridge the gap between foundry engineers and IC designers with their tools.… Read More
TSMC Formally Sues Ex-SVP Over Alleged Transfer of Trade Secrets to IntelThe big semiconductor news this week is the…Read More
WEBINAR: Revolutionizing Electrical Verification in IC DesignIn the complex world of IC design, electrical…Read More
Live Webinar: Considerations When Architecting Your Next SoC: NoC with Arteris and Aion SiliconThe explosive growth of AI and accelerated computing…Read More
From Silos to Systems, From Data to Insight: Keysight's Upcoming Webinar on EDA Data TransformationIn the fast-evolving world of electronic design automation…Read MoreNVIDIA Extends Their Datacenter Performance Lead In Neural Network Computing
At NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2016 in San Jose, California the company announced products based on their latest GPU architecture, code-named Pascal. This conference is traditionally attended by some of the leading researchers in GPU-accelerated compute technologies and over the past few years has become increasingly… Read More
Webinar alert – ARM and Enea explore NFV
In the Open Source IP panel at 53DAC, we explored the idea of workload-optimized servers. One panelist observation stuck with me: if one chooses to deviate from the Intel-based norm in a data center, you essentially have to spray paint a line around any boxes that don’t comply.… Read More
Semiconductor IP QA Standards Get a Boost at #53DAC
At the #53DAC earlier this month held in Austin, Texas I met up with Renee Donkers, the founder of Fractal Technologies. His company has been focused on improving the quality of semiconductor IP cells through the use of automated checking software. The highest area of growth in EDA as measured by the ESD Alliance is in the reusable… Read More
IBM Fires a Shot at Intel with its Latest POWER Roadmap
In case you worry that IBM will abandon hardware in the pursuit of its strategic initiatives focusing on cloud, mobile, analytics and more; well, stop worrying. With the announcement of its POWER Roadmap at the OpenPOWER Summitearlier this spring, it appears POWER will be around for years to come. But IBM is not abandoning the strategic… Read More
ASML pays $3.1B for Hermes to get E-beam inspection
Cheap versus year ago but expensive on fundementals – Net negative for KLAC/LRCX & AMAT. ASML bought Hermes Microvision for much the same reason as the Cymer acquisition – to support EUV. ASML could have made a counter offer for KLAC (as we had suggested previously) but this obviously would have been much more expensive… Read More
TMR approaches should vary by FPGA type
We’ve introduced the concepts behind triple modular redundancy (TMR) before, using built-in capability in Synopsys Synplify Premier to synthesize TMR circuitry into FPGAs automatically. A recent white paper authored by Angela Sutton revisits the subject… Read More
IC Designers talk about 28nm to 7nm challenges at #53DAC
IC design challenges are different at advanced nodes like 7nm, so to learn more about the topic I attended a panel luncheon at DAC sponsored by Cadence. The moderator was both funny and technically astute, quite the rare combination, so kudos to Professor Rob Rutenbar, a former Neolinear guy now at the University of Illinois. Panelists… Read More
Which CEVA DSP to use to Support Multimode Connectivity Requirements of IoT and M2M?
The definition of IoT systems is moving fast: the simple definition of a connected (to Internet) device in the early days is becoming more complex and also more precise. IoT or M2M devices are expected to support the full range of emerging cellular protocols such as LTE MTC Cat-1, Cat-0 or Cat-M, as well as the suite of Low Power Wide… Read More
Synaptics’ New Security Adapter Takes PC Fingerprint Security Literally Anywhere
Synaptics is an understated innovator in the human interface and end user experience technology space, and many of the hottest smartphones, tablets and PCs have their technology inside. The Samsung Galaxy S7, Apple iPhone 6S, Dell XPS 15, Microsoft Surface and Surface Book, and HP ENVY are just a few of these products I’ve personally… Read More


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