CAST Compression IP Webinar 800x100 (2)

CEVA Eyes DSP Scale in China’s $65 LTE Handsets

CEVA Eyes DSP Scale in China’s $65 LTE Handsets
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-27-2015 at 8:00 pm

China Mobile’s bid to go for 3-mode Long-Term Evolution (LTE) has led to the first major breakthrough, $65 LTE handsets, and here baseband and application processors provided by chipmakers like Leadcore Technology, MediaTek and Spreadtrum Communications have all one thing in common: DSP cores from CEVA Inc.

The advent… Read More


Full-chip Multi-domain ESD Verification

Full-chip Multi-domain ESD Verification
by Paul McLellan on 03-27-2015 at 7:00 am

ESD stands for electro-static discharge and deals with the fact that chips have to survive in an electrically hostile environment: people, testers, assembly equipment, shipping tubes. All of these can carry electric charge that has the “potential” (ho-ho) to damage the chip irreversibly. Historically this was… Read More


Medicals Marriage with Semis

Medicals Marriage with Semis
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-26-2015 at 7:00 pm

I remember a couple of decades ago, my father used to go to a nearby doctor’s clinic to get his blood pressure and sugar levels checked. I guess, in around 1990s small electronic kits became available to measure these usual daily health indicators and instantly display the numbers. I bought a few for my father then. Today, the scene… Read More


Verification IP for PCIe and AXI4

Verification IP for PCIe and AXI4
by Daniel Payne on 03-26-2015 at 2:00 pm

Engineers love acronyms and my latest blog post has three acronyms in the title alone, so hopefully you are doing or considering SoC designs with the AMBA AXI4(Advanced eXtensible Interface 4) interface specification along with PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express). One big motivation for using semiconductor… Read More


25 Years of SNUG; 50 Years of Moore’s Law

25 Years of SNUG; 50 Years of Moore’s Law
by Paul McLellan on 03-26-2015 at 8:00 am

Earlier this week it was the Synopsys user group meeting SNUG. Not just any old SNUG but the 25th Annual SNUG. The first one was 15th March 1991 and was attended by 100 people. At the time, Synopsys had annual revenues of $22M. This year, the various SNUGs around the world will have a total attendance of 10,000 people and Synopsys revenue… Read More


Innovative MIPI Display Solution for UHD Mobile Devices

Innovative MIPI Display Solution for UHD Mobile Devices
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-25-2015 at 7:00 pm

Today an SoC cannot be without multiple IP blocks integrated together in the most optimal manner. In such an environment, it’s natural that interoperability and configurability of an IP get prime considerations to achieve the best PPA (Power, Performance and Area) for the SoC containing that IP. While PPA is a basic criterion … Read More


Chips and pins and layers within

Chips and pins and layers within
by Don Dingee on 03-25-2015 at 3:00 pm

After teams sweat the details of SoC and industrial design, they turn to printed circuit board designers for magic. Here are a pile of chips and passives, and a schematic for interconnecting them. This is how much physical space the board can occupy. Connectors have to be here, and here, and mounting holes there, and there. There … Read More


The Apple A9 Samsung & TSMC Love Triangle

The Apple A9 Samsung & TSMC Love Triangle
by Robert Maire on 03-25-2015 at 10:00 am

The Apple A9 drama continues to play out with no certainty!
At the end of the day does it matter?
Will the winner be the loser?
A Comedy, Tragedy or Love Story?
Depends on your view…

Act I Scene I…The stage is set….

We are watching an Italian Opera of a standard love triangle….
The object of desire is the rich … Read More


TSMC 2015 Technology Symposium

TSMC 2015 Technology Symposium
by Paul McLellan on 03-25-2015 at 7:00 am


This year’s North American TSMC Technology Symposium is fast approaching. There are three, starting in Silicon Valley.

  • San Jose on Tuesday April 7th at the San Jose Convention Center
  • Boston on Tuesday April 14th at the Burlington Marriott
  • Austin on Thursday April 16th at the downtown Hilton

The symposium will also take … Read More


Apple’s ARMed History

Apple’s ARMed History
by Majeed Ahmad on 03-24-2015 at 7:00 pm

Apple has redefined three industries within a decade: media player with the iPod, mobile handset with the iPhone and portable computers with the iPad. If there is anything common in these three game-changing product development stories other than Apple, it’s the ARM footprint. Even now the technology media is abuzz with speculation… Read More