One of the most interesting demos at #51DAC was the eSilicon GDS II online quote system for TSMC. Probably because eSilicon was one of the most interesting companies exhibiting this year. While writing the book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” we took a close look at the history of fabless semiconductor… Read More
Silicon Catalyst partners with Arm to launch the Arm Flexible Access for Startups Contest!Winner and Runner-up to receive the contest’s largest…Read More
Synopsys Design IP for Modern SoCs and Multi-Die SystemsSemiconductor intellectual property (IP) plays a critical role…Read More
Enhancing the RISC-V Ecosystem with S2C Prototyping SolutionRISC-V's popularity stems from its open-source framework, enabling…Read More
Arteris Frames Network-On-Chip Topologies in the CarOn the heels of Arm’s 2024 automotive update,…Read More
High Level Synthesis update from #51DAC
Every since Synopsys dominated the logic synthesis market in the 1980’s we’ve had something called HLS – High Level Synthesis, meaning something higher than what Design Compiler can understand as input. At DACthis year I met with Mark Milligan of Calypto to get an update on what’s new with HLS. I first… Read More
I’ll be with you in a second
One aspect of always-on is power conservation, being able to respond to events without having a device constantly in full-power mode. This month, the announcement of the Amazon Fire Phone and details revealed about the Google Android Wear SDK suggest another important dimension: the competitive advantage of rapid, frictionless… Read More
Standard Cell, IO and Hard IP Validation update
Every SoC team uses libraries of cells to get their new product to market quicker: Standard Cells, IO Cells and Hard IP blocks. One immediate question that comes to my mind is, “How clean are these cells?” Validating your cell libraries first makes sense, and will ensure that there are fewer surprises as your chip gets… Read More
Electronics growth positive around the world
Electronics production growth has turned positive in 2014 for all key geographic regions. The graph below shows three-month-average change versus a year ago for electronics production in local currency through April 2014. Total industrial production is used for Europe (EU countries) and South Korea since electronic production… Read More
IP Management Update at DAC
To keep track of my business and personal finances I use software from Quicken, but for an SoC with hundreds of IP blocks how do you keep track of everything? The answer is found in the growing field of EDA tools for IP management, and at DACearlier this month I sat down with Neil Handof Methodics to get an update on what the industry trends… Read More
What’s New with Circuit Simulation for Cadence?
Every year at DAC I enjoy making the rounds to see what’s new with SPICE circuit simulators, so on June 3rd I met with Xiuya Liand Dan Zhuof Cadence in San Francisco to get an update about their Spectre tool. There’s plenty of competition in the SPICE area from Mentor Graphics (Analog FastSPICE, Eldo, ADiT), Synopsys … Read More
Real FPGAs don’t eat fake test vectors
Vector blasting hardware is as old as digital test methodology itself. In the days of relatively simple combinational and finite state machine logic, a set of vectors aimed broadside at inputs could shake loose most faults with observable outputs. With FPGAs, creating an effective set of artificial test vectors has become a lot… Read More
Single Event Upsets
Do you know what a SEE is? It stands for single event upset. We live on a radioactive planet which is also bombarded with cosmic rays, so particles are bombarding our chips. The materials used in packaging also can create particles that cause problems, even the solder. Reliability and aging has been an area that has not been at the forefront… Read More
What Seeking Alpha is Telling us about Intel
New Media is a double edged sword for sure. The good news is that you get to read articles by people who actually work in the semiconductor industry. The bad news is that hidden agendas and disinformation abound so let the reader beware, especially if that reader is risking their retirement money!
As I mentioned before, “Understand… Read More
The Data Crisis is Unfolding – Are We Ready?