I was at every single lunch at DVCon, not because the food was that great (it wasn’t bad) but because the topics were all interesting. The Wednesday lunch, hosted by Cadence, was a panel on software-driven verification and portable stimulus, moderated by Frank Schirrmeister (a different role for Frank – he’s usually a panel member… Read More




TSMC and ARM Serving up 7nm!
One thing I learned while writing the books about TSMC and ARM is that collaboration has always been at the core of both companies. They started with collaboration on day one and it is now a natural part of their business models. And the word collaboration in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem gets redefined at every process node,… Read More
SPIE – Interview with Greg Mcintyre of IMEC
One of the things I really like about major technical conferences is the opportunity to meet with people for networking and interviews. On Wednesday at the Advanced Lithography Conference I had the opportunity to interview Greg Mcinttyre, the director of advanced patterning at IMEC.
IMEC researchers are the first author on 32… Read More
Speaking about the Internet of Trust on April 21
Five minutes to ruin a reputation built over 20 years, as Warren Buffett put it, holds true in personal relationships. On the Internet of Things, reputations can disappear in five seconds. How do we move from merely intelligent Things to a level where devices have to be Trusted?… Read More
Mentor Extends Verification Offering!
With verification consuming more and more of the design cycle and the increasingly complex industry standard interfaces that are now common place, Verification IP (VIP) is again a trending topic. Back in my IP days the age old question was: Is it better to use VIP from the IP vendor? Because you know it will work, right? Or is it better… Read More
Mobile Will Disrupt These Industries Next
Technologists from across the globe recently gathered in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress, the annual conversation on connectivity and celebration of new gadgets. While the conference traditionally focuses on phones, the discussions about mobile—in Barcelona and beyond—have grown increasingly wide-ranging as … Read More
The Emerging Battle for Your Car’s Data
The Future Networked Car gathering put on by the International Telecommunications Union at the Geneva Motor Show last week highlighted the intensifying debate over automotive data privacy. A representative from FIA, the international federation of car clubs, and Stephan Appt, legal director and attorney at Pinsent Masons,… Read More
Apple Protects Its Designs With Custom Silicon And You Can Too
In the February 22-28 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president for hardware technologies, discusses Apple’s winning strategy of owning its own silicon. It began with the acquisition a Silicon Valley chip startup called P.A. Semi in April of 2008 and since then, Apple has never looked… Read More
Is Smart Bluetooth de facto standard for IoT Wearable, Beacons, Fitness and Health ?
Synopsys launch BTLE PHY IP, qualified by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) and meeting compliance with the Bluetooth® Smart v4.2 specification. The company has built a partnership with Mindtree to provide a complete solution, integrating Synopsys’ Bluetooth Smart PHY IP and Mindtree’s production-proven BlueLitE… Read More
Explore Google Chromium USB Type-C example designs using GoArks USB – C Thru
One of the early adopters of USB Type-C and USB Power Delivery is Google for their Chromium projects. More interestingly Google shared the complete design of the USB Type-C products in public domain right from schematic to source code of the solutions. This article explores how to use USB C-Thru board to explore Google’s designs… Read More
Musk’s new job as Samsung Fab Manager – Can he disrupt chip making? Intel outside