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IMEC and Cadence Disclose 5nm Test Chip

IMEC and Cadence Disclose 5nm Test Chip
by Scotten Jones on 10-09-2015 at 7:00 am

Recently imec and Cadence disclosed that they had fabricated 5nm test chips. This afternoon Dan Nenni and I had a conference call with Praveen Raghavan, principal engineer at imec, and Vassilios Gerousis, distinguished engineer at Cadence to get more details on what the test chip is and what was learned.

First off Vassilios really… Read More


BATTERYGATE: Is Apple’s Samsung made iPhone 6S Core Rotten?

BATTERYGATE: Is Apple’s Samsung made iPhone 6S Core Rotten?
by Robert Maire on 10-08-2015 at 4:00 pm

By this time, anyone with a pulse in the tech industry knows that Apple has dual sourced the A9 processor for the Iphone 6S, from both Samsung and TSMC. There are even apps to tell whether your 6S has a Samsung or TSMC part in it. People have run performance comparisons and concluded that the processing performance is the same, which … Read More


Cadence Outlines Automotive Solutions at TSMC OIP Event

Cadence Outlines Automotive Solutions at TSMC OIP Event
by Tom Simon on 10-08-2015 at 12:00 pm

I used to joke that my first car could survive a nuclear war. It was a 1971 Volvo sedan (142) that was EMP proof because it had absolutely no semiconductors in the ignition system, just points, condensers and a coil. If you go back to the Model T in 1915 you will see that the “on-board electronics” were not that different. However, today’s… Read More


UFS or NVMe in Smartphone? See Apple’s answer!

UFS or NVMe in Smartphone? See Apple’s answer!
by Eric Esteve on 10-08-2015 at 7:00 am

There should be a link between iPhone H/W architecture and the incredible success of the product? Let’s assume and claim that this architecture, based on the internally developed ARM based A9 application processor, is simply the best on the market today…

Apple has implemented SSD in MacBook based on NVM Express (NVMe) protocol.… Read More


Dinner with the Man who is Reshaping the Semiconductor Industry!

Dinner with the Man who is Reshaping the Semiconductor Industry!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-07-2015 at 4:00 pm

The recent mega acquisition of Broadcom Corp by Avago can be traced all the way back to Silicon Valley stalwart Hewlett Packard (founded in a two car Palo Alto garage in 1939). Even more interesting is the man behind the acquisition and how he got to where he is today.Avago began as the semiconductor products division of HP in 1961, … Read More


Coventor prepping MEMS for CMOS integration

Coventor prepping MEMS for CMOS integration
by Don Dingee on 10-07-2015 at 12:00 pm

About 11 months ago, I wrote a piece titled “Money for data and your MEMS for free.” In that, I took on the thinking that TSMC is just going to ride into town, fab trillions of IoT sensors, and they all will be 2.6 cents ten years from now. Good headline, but the technology and economics are not that simple. This may be the semiconductor … Read More


12 Reasons to Attend this Annual User Group Meeting for Transistor-level IC Designers

12 Reasons to Attend this Annual User Group Meeting for Transistor-level IC Designers
by Daniel Payne on 10-07-2015 at 7:00 am

My first job out of college was transistor-level circuit design of DRAMs at Intel, so I’ve continued to be fascinated with both the craft and science of designing, optimizing, verifying and debugging custom ICs. Last October I traveled to Munich, Germany to attend a two day user group meeting for engineers using tools from… Read More


A FinFET BSIM-CMG model update from UC-Berkeley

A FinFET BSIM-CMG model update from UC-Berkeley
by Tom Dillinger on 10-06-2015 at 4:00 pm

Every designer relies upon an underlying “compact” device model for circuit simulations – these models are the lifeblood of the IC industry. Designers may not be aware that there is an organization that qualifies models – the Compact Model Coalition – which operates under the umbrella of the Si2 Consortium: http://www.si2.org/cmc_index.phpRead More


Secured SAM A5D4 MCU for Industrial, Fitness or IoT Display

Secured SAM A5D4 MCU for Industrial, Fitness or IoT Display
by Eric Esteve on 10-06-2015 at 12:00 pm

The new SAMA5D4, ARM Cortex-A5-based, expands the SAMA5 microprocessors family, adding a 720p resolution hardware video decoder to target Human Machine Interface (HMI), control panel and IoT applications when high performance display capability are required. Cortex-A5 offers raw performance of 945 DMIPS (@ 600 MHz) completed… Read More


Nine Cost Considerations to Keep IP Relevant –Part2

Nine Cost Considerations to Keep IP Relevant –Part2
by Pawan Fangaria on 10-06-2015 at 7:00 am

In the first part of this article I wrote about four types of costs which must be considered when an IP goes through design differentiation, customization, characterization, and selection and evaluation for acquisition. In this part of the article, I will discuss about the other five types of costs which must be considered to enhance… Read More