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Has the Semiconductor Industry Gone Mad?

Has the Semiconductor Industry Gone Mad?
by Daniel Nenni on 02-07-2015 at 7:00 pm

The weather in Taiwan last week was very strange. It was so cold I tried to turn on the heat in my hotel room only to find out it was not possible. If you want more heat they bring a portable heater because who needs central heat in Hsinchu? Even stranger is all of the media hyperbole on the next process nodes:

Intel CFO: We’re so farRead More


Product Review: Bose – SoundTrue Around-Ear Headphones

Product Review: Bose – SoundTrue Around-Ear Headphones
by Daniel Payne on 02-07-2015 at 7:00 am

My old headphones with microphone lost a channel, so it was time to upgrade and I went shopping for something that had high fidelity and fit over my ears, instead of on my ears. After some online research I opted for the Bose headphones, because that brand has been around for decades, they offer many models to choose from, and are readily… Read More


Why Would You Leave Yahoo to Go Into EDA?

Why Would You Leave Yahoo to Go Into EDA?
by Paul McLellan on 02-06-2015 at 7:00 am

I sat down this afternoon with Peter Theunis, the CTO of Methodics. Conveniently their office is about a 15 minute walk from where I live so we could chat face to face.

Peter started programming when he was 8 and his first “product” was a weather system for orchards where sensors in the orchards would send information … Read More


Cadence 2014 Results

Cadence 2014 Results
by Paul McLellan on 02-05-2015 at 7:01 pm

Cadence announced their Q4 and 2014 results yesterday. They are the only one of the big 3 EDA companies whose fiscal year is the calendar year so Synopsys and Mentor will not be joining them in announcing them this week.

I won’t go into the numbers in detail, you can find them all easily enough. But it is a pity that statements like… Read More


Google Glass: The Second Coming and a Brief History

Google Glass: The Second Coming and a Brief History
by Majeed Ahmad on 02-05-2015 at 4:00 pm

Google Glass is dead; long live Google Glass. That’s how Ori Inbar stated the recent closure of Google Glass beta-test project in his report titled “Smart Glasses Market 2015: Towards 1 Billion Shipments” released by www.augmentedreality.org.

Inbar says that Google, a smart glass pioneer, not only compromised its status in … Read More


Concept: From Schematics to Debug

Concept: From Schematics to Debug
by Paul McLellan on 02-05-2015 at 7:00 am

In the late 1990s I was the VP Engineering at Ambit Design Systems. We had a synthesis product (called BuildGates, nobody ever forgot the name). Both our own engineers and our customers wanted to be able to take a look at the gate-level netlist that was generated from their RTL. We used a product from a company called Concept Engineering… Read More


What’s Hot at SPIE Advanced Lithography

What’s Hot at SPIE Advanced Lithography
by Beth Martin on 02-04-2015 at 10:00 pm

The 40[SUP]th[/SUP] SPIE Advanced Lithography conference will be at the San Jose Convention Center 22-26 February. Over the past few years, this conference has grown in scope to include emerging patterning technologies, like directed self-assembly (DSA) and design-process-technology co-optimization.

Underlying all … Read More


Temperature Monitoring IP to Revamp SoCs

Temperature Monitoring IP to Revamp SoCs
by Pawan Fangaria on 02-04-2015 at 3:00 pm

With increasing density and functionality of chips at extremely thin silicon and metal layers, temperature has become critical. The temperature situation can become worse with wireless enabled 24/7 power-on devices. In such a scenario, a device must manage its thermal profile dynamically to keep the temperature within tolerable… Read More


New Suite of ARM IP for Mobile

New Suite of ARM IP for Mobile
by Paul McLellan on 02-04-2015 at 7:00 am

ARM had a big press/analyst show at the Epic Roasthouse here in San Francisco this morning. They announced a new portfolio of IP targeted at the next generation mobile experience. There were 4 components to the announcement:

  • A new microprocessor, the Cortex-A72. More details below
  • New CoreLink CCI-500 Cache Coherent Interconnect
Read More

Ready to Wear Sensor Hubs

Ready to Wear Sensor Hubs
by Majeed Ahmad on 02-04-2015 at 3:00 am

Atmel Corp. has beefed up its sensor hub offerings for wearable devices with SAM D20 Cortex M0+ MCU core to add more functionality and further lower the power bar for battery-operated devices. The SAM D20 Cortex M0+ microcontrollers offer ultra-low power through a patented power-saving technique called “Event System” that allows… Read More