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Adding NAND Flash Can Be Tricky

Adding NAND Flash Can Be Tricky
by Tom Simon on 09-01-2015 at 4:00 pm

As consumers, we take NAND flash memory for granted. It has worked its way into a vast array of products. These include USB drives, SD cards, wearables, IoT devices, tablets, phones and increasingly SSD’s for computer systems. From the outside the magic of flash memory seems quite simple, but we have to remember that this is a technology… Read More


TSMC is the Top Dog in Pure-Play Foundry Business

TSMC is the Top Dog in Pure-Play Foundry Business
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-01-2015 at 12:00 pm

We all have echoed the fact that the arrival of fabless business model in the semiconductor industry has transformed it completely. The book, “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” provides several stories around that. In the backdrop of that, one key point to ponder upon is the start of pure-play foundries;… Read More


Solido Wrote the Book on Variation

Solido Wrote the Book on Variation
by Paul McLellan on 09-01-2015 at 7:00 am

When I studied mathematical analysis, one of the things that we had to prove turns out to be surprisingly difficult. If you have a continuous function and at one point it is below a line (say zero) and at another point it is above zero, then there must be a point at which the value is exactly zero. In effect, a continuous function can’t… Read More


Xtensa core in Qualcomm low-power Wi-Fi

Xtensa core in Qualcomm low-power Wi-Fi
by Don Dingee on 08-31-2015 at 4:00 pm

Wi-Fi has this reputation as being a power hog. It takes a relatively big processor to run at full throughput. It is always transmitting all over the place, and it isn’t very efficient at doing it. Most of those preconceived notions arose from older chips targeting the primary use case for Wi-Fi in enterprise and residential environments.… Read More


Optimizing SRAM IP for Yield and Reliability

Optimizing SRAM IP for Yield and Reliability
by Daniel Payne on 08-31-2015 at 12:00 pm

My IC design career started out with DRAM at Intel, and included SRAM embedded in GPUs, so I recall some common questions that face memory IP designers even today, like:

  • Does reading a bit flip the stored data?
  • Can I write both 0 and 1 into every cell?
  • Will read access times be met?
  • While lowering the supply voltage does the cell data retain?
Read More

Michael Sanie Plays the Synopsys Verification Variations

Michael Sanie Plays the Synopsys Verification Variations
by Paul McLellan on 08-31-2015 at 7:00 am

I met Michael Sanie last week. He is in charge of verification marketing at Synopsys. I know him well since he worked for me at both VLSI Technology and Cadence. In fact his first job out of college was to take over support of VLSIextract (our circuit extractor), which I had written. But we are getting ahead.

Michael was born in Iran and… Read More


China: drag on global semiconductor market?

China: drag on global semiconductor market?
by Bill Jewell on 08-30-2015 at 7:00 pm

The Chinese stock market (as measured by the Hang Seng Index) dropped 11% from August 14 to August 24 over concerns of a slowing economy. In reaction, the U.S. stock market (as measured by the S&P 500) dropped 11% from August 17 to August 25. The China market has since rebounded 2% while the U.S. market rebounded 5%. Will a slowing… Read More


Simulating to a fault in automotive and more

Simulating to a fault in automotive and more
by Don Dingee on 08-30-2015 at 12:00 pm

We’re putting the finishing touches on Chapter 9 of our upcoming book on ARM processors in mobile, this chapter looking at the evolution of Qualcomm. One of the things that made Qualcomm go was their innovative use of digital simulation. First, simulation proved out the Viterbi decoder (which Viterbi wasn’t convinced had a lot … Read More


4 Design Tips for AVB in Car Infotainment

4 Design Tips for AVB in Car Infotainment
by Majeed Ahmad on 08-30-2015 at 7:00 am

Audio Video Bridging (AVB) is a well-established standard for in-car infotainment, and there is a significant amount of activity for specifying and developing AVB solutions in vehicles. The primary use case for AVB is interconnecting all devices in a vehicle’s infotainment system. That includes the head unit, rear-seat entertainment… Read More


IoT and OTP are Like Peanut Butter and Jelly!

IoT and OTP are Like Peanut Butter and Jelly!
by Daniel Nenni on 08-29-2015 at 7:00 am

Have you ever had a peanut butter and bacon sandwich? Everything goes better with bacon! Which brings me to one of my favorite sayings: “(insert two complimentary things) go together like peanut butter and jelly”. How about this: “low power and IoT”, “IoT and OTP”, and “Low Power OTP and Sidense go together like peanut butter and … Read More