You are currently viewing SemiWiki as a guest which gives you limited access to the site. To view blog comments and experience other SemiWiki features you must be a registered member. Registration is fast, simple, and absolutely free so please,
join our community today!
Everyone has heard the expression, “Half the job is having the right tool.” In the case of FPGA-based prototyping, however, the right tool for the job is only the beginning. What teams really need to think through is what exactly should be done with an FPGA-based prototyping tool?
The obvious answer is prototyping an SoC, pre-silicon.… Read More
There is obviously a broad spectrum of semiconductor IP but broadly speaking it seems to fall into three buckets:
- foundation IP: standard cells, memories
- microprocessors and associated peripherals
- interface IP
Foundation IP is where it all started. When I was at Compass Design Automation in the 1990s that was pretty much what… Read More
Although primarily developed for military operations, this cutting-edge satellite technology was eventually allowed for civilian applications. The first interagency testing of GPS receivers was conducted in California in 1984. By July 1995, using Navstar constellation, GPS was fully operational across the country. Automotive… Read More
Tuesday morning press briefing
The show started for me Tuesday morning with the SEMI press briefing. SEMI said there are 1,200 booths this year, 629 exhibiting companies and over 180 hours of programming. They also said pre-registration was up from last year and they expect 26,000 visitors.
Dan Tracy then gave an update on the markets.… Read More
The whole world’s eyes are at Internet of Things (IoT) market in various segments. The overall semiconductor ecosystem, starting from best suited technology nodes for IoT up to the final end products including sensors, microcontrollers, wireless chipsets, analog ICs, and so on are geared to avail the best opportunities from… Read More
SoC design these days is largely about assembling externally developed semiconductor IP with a small amount of differentiated content. Only companies who have to adopt new processes instantly develop a lot of their own IP. It makes more sense to license it. Partially because there is not a lot of differentiation in standards-based… Read More
When you look at NetSpeed’s NocStudio design tool, you first think “I see, NetSpeed is a new Network-on-Chip (NoC) IP company”. Are you wrong? Yes and no… No because NocStudio indeed generates a NoC. Yes, because the company objectives are going much farther than simply deliver a new NoC solution. According with Sundari Mitra, … Read More
Apple has roughly 20% market share of the smartphone unit shipments. Android has pretty much all the rest with a tiny sliver for Microsoft Windows Phone, Blackberry, and Samsung’s Tizen. By any standard, Android is the highest volume operating system ever created. Famously, Microsoft makes more money on patent licenses… Read More
Most engineers learn by doing, and so at DAC in June an EDA vendor with High Level Synthesis (HLS) tools held a language tutorial on choosing C++ or SystemC for design and verification projects. The EDA company is Calypto, and Stuart Clubb put together the tutorial on using synthesizable C++ or SystemC. The design and verification… Read More
Antun Domic is the GM of the Design Group at Synopsys. I sat down with him a couple of weeks ago.
His name is Croatian although, of course, there was no Croatia back then it was part of Yugoslavia. But in fact he grew up in Chile and went to university there where he studied EE and math. He came to the US as a grad student and did a PhD at MIT in … Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot