Last week there was a meeting of the GSA Analog/Mixed-Signal (AMS) working group. It was completely focused on FD-SOI (I hate that name, especially since FinFET is also fully-depleted. I vote for BoxFETs.) It was a bases loaded meeting with presentations from ST Microelectronics (calling in from France close to midnight), Samsung… Read More
Sophisticated soundscapes usher in cache-coherent multicore DSPDigital audio processing is evolving into an art…Read More
A Quick Look at Agentic/Generative AI in Software EngineeringAgentic methods are hot right now since single…Read More
Improve Precision of Parasitic Extraction for Digital DesignsBy Mark Tawfik Parasitic extraction is essential in…Read More
Perforce at DAC, Unifying Software and Silicon Across the EcosystemAs the new name reflects, chip and system…Read More
Double SoC prototyping performance with S2C’s VP1902-based S8-100As AI, HPC, and networking applications demand ever-higher…Read More
Testing Ethernet with virtual co-modeling
Ethernet is suddenly a hot topic in SoC design again. The biggest news may be this: it’s not just the cloud and enterprise networks. Those are still important applications. The cloud is driving hard for more ports at 25G server and 100G switch speeds according to a recent Dell’Oro Group report. Enterprise networks are driving for… Read More
NIWeek: Xilinx Inside
Being from Britain, NI always means Northern Ireland when I see it. After all the official name of my country is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, giving us the same problem as the United States of America, the full name is a mouthful. So we abbreviate the country to UK and call ourselves British or even Brits.… Read More
My Experience with the Ultra Thin 2015 MacBook
Before we left for our 5 week trip to Europe I decided that I would need a real laptop computer on the road. I knew it would be a near necessity for booking hotels and making train reservations. Also, I would need to write emails and maybe even pay some online bills. I already have an iPad but really wanted to be able to run all my applications… Read More
A Complete Simulation Platform for Mobile Systems
If we take an insight into the semiconductor industry, we can easily find that mobile systems are the main drivers of this industry. The Smartphone business has remained at the top since a good number of years. Although the Smartphone sales growth has started showing a sign of stagnation, it is still a main contributor with a solid… Read More
A Paradigm Shift in Microelectronic System Design
A Paradigm Shift
The word “paradigm” is defined in the dictionary as “a framework containing the basic assumptions, ways of thinking, and methodology that are commonly accepted by members of a scientific community”. In his influential book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” published in 1962, Thomas Kuhn uses the term… Read More
Four Things a New Semiconductor Technology Must Have to be Disruptive
This post discusses attributes of gallium nitride (#GaN) that make it a disruptive technology and identifies the four factors required for GaN technology to displace silicon as the technology of choice.
Displacing the Silicon with GaN
38 years ago, when I first entered the semiconductor business as a freshly minted Stanford … Read More
Mentor 2Q Results
So it was Mentor’s turn yesterday after Synopsys on Wednesday. And yes, it really is the end of their second quarter. They produced some very good results. As Wally opened:The second quarter of fiscal 2016 was one of record for Q2. We substantially exceed our own expectations was revenue of $281.1 million and non-GAAP earnings… Read More
Older Nodes Get New Life With Ultra Low Power Variants for IoT
Ever since I can remember, and I’ve been in EDA since the early 80’s, new process development has largely focused on the latest nodes. Trailing nodes were quickly put into support mode. New nodes benefited the most from static and dynamic voltage reduction efforts, as well as improvements in flows and performance. Only a small number… Read More
Synopsys Q3 Results
Synopsys announced their quarterly results this afternoon. It is the end of their Q3 (yes, they are not on the regular calendar year. Neither, for that matter, is Mentor who announce tomorrow). On the earnings call Aart started off:Good afternoon. I’m happy to report that our third quarter results were very strong, as we achieved… Read More
TSMC N3 Process Technology Wiki