Micrel Inc., one of the oldest chipmakers in Silicon Valley, has been acquired by Chandler, Arizona–based Microchip Technology Inc. for $839 million. A pure-play analog chip house will go to one of the leading microcontroller suppliers after regulatory approval amid the consolidation wave that has engulfed the semiconductor… Read More
Arteris at the 2025 Design Automation Conference #62DACKey Takeaways: Expanded Multi-Die Solution: Arteris showcases its…Read More
Secure-IC at the 2025 Design Automation Conference #62DACSecure-IC at DAC 2025: Building Trust into Tomorrow’s…Read More
The Sondrel transformation to Aion SIlicon!Ollie is a commercially astute senior leader with…Read More
Keysight at the 2025 Design Automation Conference #62DACKeysight Showcases AI-Ready EDA and Multi-Physics Innovation at…Read More
Infinisim at the 2025 Design Automation Design Conference #62DACClock Matters: What Infinisim Is Showcasing at DAC…Read More
SoCs in New Context Look beyond PPA – Part2
In the first part of this article, I talked about some of the key business aspects along with some technical aspects like system performance, functionality, and IP integration that drive the architecture of an SoC for its best optimization and realization in an economic sense. In this part, let’s dive into some more aspects that… Read More
Feed Your Mind and Body at 52nd DAC!
My beautiful wife and I attend the Design Automation Conference together whenever possible. More so now that she is the co-founder and CFO of SemiWiki. It is really nice for her to put a face to the invoices and personally thank our subscribers. Her first DAC was 1985 in Las Vegas. We were married for less than a year so it was like a second… Read More
Design Virtualization Technology: VMWare for SoCs
It was way back in 2001 that Pat Gelsinger, then CTO of Intel, pointed out that if we kept increasing clock rates that chips would have the power density of rocket nozzles and nuclear reactor cores. Ever since then power has been public enemy #1 in chip design. In 2007 Apple announced the iPhone and the application processor inside … Read More
Chip Design Problems Remain the Same, More or Less
For those who may not know me, here is a brief introduction. I started in the semiconductor business when RCA was still making vacuum tubes and I wrote EDA software before there was an EDA industry. I’ve designed and sold chips and developed, sold and used EDA tools at companies as big as General Electric and as small as seven people.… Read More
Calibre xACT Shakes Up 16nm and Below Extraction Game
Mentor Graphics made a big announcement regarding SOC extraction at their User2User conference in San Jose during April. Before I get to the meat of the announcement, I’d like to reflect back on the early days of Calibre-DRC at Mentor. I was in Sales at Mentor around 1999, and Calibre-DRC was the new kid on the block. We had to go convince… Read More
We cover the Semiconductor Industry so you don’t have to!
The media landscape is changing faster than ever before. I don’t really think we have more news to cover but there sure are more people covering it and even more news outlets are coming. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, SnapChat, etc… news will be coming at us faster and from more directions than ever before. It’s not a bad thing but there… Read More
Antifuse is the New Foundation of NVM Below 16nm
Today the non-volatile memory (NVM) foundation is the eFuse. It is typically available for free from the foundry and is the default choice because, like Mount Everest, it is there. However, like Mount Everest it is big. It is also power hungry and slow. eFuse solutions blow the silicide on the poly line creating a change in resistance.… Read More
DAC, IP, Parties and Philanthropy
My typical DACtrip is a blur of non-stop interviews with EDA, IP and Semiconductor vendors followed by a few dozen blogs to share what I’ve learned. I just became aware of something a bit different at DAC this year by talking with Jill Jacobs, an organizer for an event dubbed Heart of Technology (HoT) where they raise money for… Read More
SEMICON West, Free For Two More Days
SEMICON West is coming up July 14-16th. As always it is in San Francisco at the Moscone Center. Why should you go? Because SEMICON West attracts more than 30,000 professional attendees representing the leading global technology companies, including IDMs, foundries, fabless, contract packaging and test houses, OEMs, materials… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot