What is common between the 4G LTE modems from Samsung, Intel, Mediatek, Spreadtrum or Leadcore? All these chips are architecture with CEVA XC4000 family supporting 4G LTE-Advanced, LTE, HSPA/+, W-CDMA, TD-SCDMA, and legacy GSM/GPRS/EDGE. Samsung organization is vertical, the company design and manufacture DRAM, NAND and… Read More



DAC Keynotes: Mark Your Calendar
DAC starts in San Francisco on June 8th. The kickoff keynote at 9.20am that morning is by Brian Otis of Google. He is a director at Google[x]. According to Wikipedia:Google X, stylized as Google[x], is a semi-secret facility run by Google dedicated to making major technological advancements. It is located about a half mile from … Read More
ANSYS Event to Highlight Cutting Edge Technology Development
If you follow technology news, it would be hard to deny that we live in exciting times. In some ways there is an unparalleled amount of big and cool technology development going on right now. We all have followed the rise of Tesla Motors. They took over a long vacant US big-auto plant in Fremont and are reinventing the US automobile industry.… Read More
SEMI Wafers to Wallstreet – New England Forum March 12, 2015
On March 12 SEMI held a New England Forum breakfast event entitled “Wafers to Wallstreet” with four speakers. The main focus of the discussion was on the “Internet of Things” and the following are my impression from the talks in a bullet point format.
Device Scaling and Performance in the Era of IoT – Gary Rosen, Applied Materials… Read More
EDPS: Fins and FinFETs
Look at those dolphins with fins on their backs. Did you know that FinFETs are actually named after them since Chenming Hu and his team though that they looked like a fish’s fin? And since they invented FinFETs they got to name them too. But those dolphins also mean that it is nearly time for this years Electronic Design Process… Read More
Intel Goes After Broadcom
Intel continues shopping spree with Broadcom
AMAT drops TEL merger due to high remedy cost
Global Foundries wins Apple A9 business at 20nm for 6S & “6C”
Intel follows Altera with Broadcom chaser…..
Sources in the industry have confirmed that Intel is advanced discussions to acquire Broadcom, following… Read More
Semiconductor CAPEX Growth Increases Fab Equipment Spending!
With worldwide capex growth of 8%, fab equipment spending is expected to increase by 15% in 2015, according to the most recent edition of the SEMI (www.semi.org) World Fab Forecast. SEMI’s data also predicts a slowdown of fab equipment spending in 2016 to low single … Read More
What is Skipper?
What is Skipper? Well, it seems it’s a penguin in the movie Madagascar. And one of Barbie’s sisters. Who knew? But for Semiwiki readers it’s an integrated chip finishing platform from ICScape. Skipper can read in full-chip layout extremely fast, examine it and manipulate it in various ways, and write it out again.… Read More
Secret Sauce for Successful Mixed-signal SoCs
For a design engineer engulfed in the daily rigorous routine of having to keep in sync with updates from various design team members as well the dictums of the design management team, the task of remaining up-to-date with the design information is very often daunting.
What design changes have been checked in this week? Is the verification… Read More
Linley Mobile Microprocessor Conference
As The Who sang on Who’s Next:Keep me movin’, groovin’, groovin’, yeah
Movin’, Yeah
Mobile, mobile, mobile, mobile, …
On April 22nd and 23rd the place to be moving (or movin’) to will be the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara. Because What’s Next is this year’s Linley Mobile Conference… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot