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GlobalFoundries 2014: a Year of Change

GlobalFoundries 2014: a Year of Change
by Paul McLellan on 02-23-2015 at 7:00 am

GlobalFoundries at the end of 2014 is a very different company from what it was a the beginning of the year.

At the start of 2014, GF was a company with:

  • a CEO in Ajit Manocha who was reputed to be just a safe pair of hands while the company found a new CEO
  • several 200mm fabs in Singapore (the old Chartered fabs) running mature processes,
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Synchronizer Optimization 101

Synchronizer Optimization 101
by Daniel Nenni on 02-22-2015 at 9:00 pm

A webinar presented Last week introduced two free aids to evaluating synchronizer Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF). The first, MetaACE LTD, is used to characterize the intrinsic parameters needed to calculate MTBF (tau and Tw). This limited version of MetaACE supports up to 250 circuit nodes, which is enough for a typical C-only-extracted… Read More


Product Review: Google Chromecast

Product Review: Google Chromecast
by Daniel Payne on 02-22-2015 at 1:00 pm

Our household members own both Apple and Android devices, so we wanted a way to share our photos or videos on the Samsung TV. The device we ended up buying is called Chromecast from Google, and it’s a small media streaming device that plugs into an HDMI port on our TV. We’ve had Chromecast for about six weeks now.… Read More


Simply the Highest Performing Cortex-M MCU

Simply the Highest Performing Cortex-M MCU
by Eric Esteve on 02-22-2015 at 11:30 am

If you target high growth markets like wearable (Sport Watches, Fitness Bands, Wearable medical) industrial (mPOS, Telematics, etc.) or Smart Appliances, you expect using a power efficient MCU delivering high DMIPs count. We are talking about systems requiring a low Bill of Material (BoM) both in term of cost and devices count.… Read More


Analyzing Power Nets Early and Often, a New White Paper

Analyzing Power Nets Early and Often, a New White Paper
by Paul McLellan on 02-22-2015 at 7:00 am

One of the big challenges in designing ICs today is designing a robust power net capable of delivering necessary current levels to all areas of the die. Getting it wrong can, of course, lead to circuit failures that range from non-functional silicon, through intermittent performance and functional problems, to early EM-driven… Read More


IoT Sensor Node Designs Call for Highly Integrated Flows

IoT Sensor Node Designs Call for Highly Integrated Flows
by Tom Simon on 02-21-2015 at 7:00 pm

Applications for IoT sensors are becoming more sophisticated, especially for industrial usage. Building optimal sensors for different applications requires multi-domain design, optimization and verification flows. The sensor devices are usually MEMS, and as such have electrical properties that need to be tailored to … Read More


The PTAB Inter Partes Review process: Danger, Will Robinson

The PTAB Inter Partes Review process: Danger, Will Robinson
by Scott Griffith on 02-21-2015 at 7:00 am

Companies with significant investment in their patent portfolios have recently faced a harsh reality: their intellectual property has become a collection of paper with large targets on them. Taking aim is the US Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trials and Appeal Board (PTAB), and recent figures on dismissed claims shows… Read More


SPIE Advanced Lithography Preview

SPIE Advanced Lithography Preview
by Scotten Jones on 02-20-2015 at 1:00 pm

Next week is the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference in San Jose, the premier conference for advanced lithography used to produce state-of-the-art semiconductors. Last year I blogged after the conference about some of the key points I heard at the conference and this year I plan to do the same.

Last year’s blog is available HERERead More


Synopsys Earnings Call Q1 2015

Synopsys Earnings Call Q1 2015
by Paul McLellan on 02-20-2015 at 7:00 am

Synopsys announced their results yesterday. Their 2014 already ended, this is the end of their fiscal first quarter. On the call were Aart, one of Synopsys’s two co-CEOs, the other being Chi-Foon Chan; and Trac Pham, the new CFO on his first earnings call.

Synopsys’s results were good. A quick look at the results. Revenue was $542M… Read More


FinFET Designs Need Early Reliability Analysis

FinFET Designs Need Early Reliability Analysis
by Pawan Fangaria on 02-19-2015 at 9:30 pm

In a world with mobile and IoT devices driven by ultra-low power, high performance and small footprint transistors, FinFET based designs are ideal. FinFETs provide high current drive, low leakage and high device density. However, a FinFET transistor is more exposed to thermal issues, electro migration (EM), and electrostatic… Read More