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How Emulation Enables Complex Power Intent Modeling

How Emulation Enables Complex Power Intent Modeling
by Pawan Fangaria on 07-15-2015 at 12:00 pm

As the number of CPU, GPU, and IP is growing in an SoC, power management is becoming more and more a complex task in itself. A single tool or methodology may not be enough for complete power management and verification of an SoC. In an SoC, there can be multiple modes of operations involving hardware and software interactions, different… Read More


SEMICON Day 3: Leti, Intel Keynote, 450mm (Pic!) and Innovation Keynote

SEMICON Day 3: Leti, Intel Keynote, 450mm (Pic!) and Innovation Keynote
by Paul McLellan on 07-15-2015 at 11:59 am

Let’s start with yesterday evening, so technically yesterday. It was July 14th, which is the equivalent of Independence Day in France. So the perfect day for Leti, based in Grenoble, to present a lot of the work that they are doing on 3D “more than Moore” type technologies, including photonics. Also, wafer-scale… Read More


SEMICON Day 2: Outlook and Keynote Panel

SEMICON Day 2: Outlook and Keynote Panel
by Paul McLellan on 07-15-2015 at 7:00 am

The second day of SEMICON West opened with a press conference. Since it was at 7.30 in the morning we all needed the coffee that they provided. For those of us that remember the glory days of DAC some of the statistics were depressing:

  • 45th year (hey, we got them beat on at least one statistic)
  • 692 exhibitors
  • 136 new exhibitors (about
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Benefits of RTL Power Budgeting

Benefits of RTL Power Budgeting
by Daniel Payne on 07-15-2015 at 4:00 am

Only one company at the recent DAC conference and exhibit had a set of four interacting disciplines: Fluids, Structures, Electronics and Systems. Did you guess that the company was ANSYS? I get so IC focused at times that I almost forget that chips plug into boards, that boards become systems, and that systems drive and control mechanical… Read More


SEMICON Day 1: IoT Everywhere…and China

SEMICON Day 1: IoT Everywhere…and China
by Paul McLellan on 07-14-2015 at 5:00 pm

The first day of SEMICON West for me is usually imec day. They have a full day of presentations. But I saw the most interesting ones in Brussels recently so I decided to go to the SEMI/Gartner day instead. They run in parallel ballrooms in the Marriot on 4th street.

To me there were two big themes. One was the unavoidable internet of things… Read More


Angela Merkel Visits GlobalFoundries in Dresden!

Angela Merkel Visits GlobalFoundries in Dresden!
by Daniel Nenni on 07-14-2015 at 2:00 pm

The Chancellor of Germany visited Fab 1 in Dresden today. I did not get to speak with her personally so I will send her a message here. The fabless semiconductor industry is a force of nature. You can either harness the power or be overwhelmed by it. The United States, Taiwan, China, and South Korea have certainly figured this out. Hopefully… Read More


VC For Semiconductor: Dead or Alive?

VC For Semiconductor: Dead or Alive?
by Paul McLellan on 07-14-2015 at 7:00 am

By Charlie Cheng, CEO of Kilopass.

Six years ago, I left my Entrepreneur-In-Residence (EIR) role at a venture capital firm to join Kilopass as an “interim CEO”, thinking the venture world will eventually forget about semiconductor as an industry as it matures. So it’s interesting to me how, six years later, the venture investment… Read More


Improve RTL Physically for Design Quality & Convergence

Improve RTL Physically for Design Quality & Convergence
by Pawan Fangaria on 07-13-2015 at 12:00 pm

The SoC design teams are usually divided between front-end and back-end specialties. It is neither practical nor advisable to combine the two teams in order to better tackle the back-end issues upfront during the front-end design. However, a common problem is that the issues at the layout stage have very little scope for resolution… Read More


Silicon Saxony!

Silicon Saxony!
by Daniel Nenni on 07-13-2015 at 8:00 am

The “Saxony” reference comes from the Holy Roman era which is now the tenth largest of Germany’s sixteen states and is divided into ten districts. The “Silicon” comes from the microchip makers in the Dresden area which is district #2. The largest of said chip makers is now GlobalFoundries so in the same vein that California has Silicon… Read More


GlobalFoundries FD-SOI. Yes, It’s True

GlobalFoundries FD-SOI. Yes, It’s True
by Paul McLellan on 07-13-2015 at 6:00 am

There have been rumors around for months (even on Semiwiki here) but today it is official. GlobalFoundries announced 22FDX which is a 22nm FD-SOI platform. GF announced that they had licensed FD-SOI from STMicroelectronics a couple of years ago and then…nothing. I just assumed it was a marketing deal that would be driven… Read More