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SPICE Circuit Simulator Gets a Jolt

SPICE Circuit Simulator Gets a Jolt
by Daniel Payne on 01-25-2014 at 11:28 am

I’ve been using SPICE circuit simulators since 1978, both internally and commercially developed, and a lot has changed since the early days where netlists were simulated in batch mode on time-share mainframes. We used to wait overnight for our simulations to complete, and in the morning had to pickup our output results … Read More


Stop TDDB from getting through peanut butter

Stop TDDB from getting through peanut butter
by Don Dingee on 01-24-2014 at 6:00 pm

There are a few dozen causes of semiconductor failure. Most can be lumped into one of three categories: material defects, process or workmanship issues, or environmental or operational overstress. Even when all those causes are carefully mitigated, one factor is limiting reliability more as geometries shrink – and it… Read More


Is Altera Leaving Intel for TSMC?

Is Altera Leaving Intel for TSMC?
by Daniel Nenni on 01-24-2014 at 9:00 am

There is a rumor making the rounds that Altera will leave Intel and return to TSMC. Rumors are just rumors but this one certainly has legs and I will tell you why and what I would have done if I were Altera CEO John Daane. Altera is a great company, one that I have enjoyed working with over the years, but I really think they made a serious mistake… Read More


Parasitic Debugging in Complex Design – How Easy?

Parasitic Debugging in Complex Design – How Easy?
by Pawan Fangaria on 01-23-2014 at 9:00 am

When we talk about parasitic, we talk about post layout design further expanded in terms of electrical components such as resistances and capacitances. In the semiconductor design environment where multiple parts of a design from different sources are assembled together into highly complex, high density SoC, imagine how complex… Read More


Rekeying the IoT with eMTP

Rekeying the IoT with eMTP
by Don Dingee on 01-22-2014 at 4:10 pm

For non-volatile storage in IoT devices, there is technology designed to be reprogrammed many times, and technology designed to be programmed once. The many times mode is for application code, while the once mode is for keying and calibration parameters. We are about to enter the IoT rekeying zone, in between these two extremes.… Read More


Wearables the Big Hit at CES

Wearables the Big Hit at CES
by Paul McLellan on 01-22-2014 at 3:00 pm

There were a number of trends discernible at CES this year, one of the big ones being wearables, especially in the medical and fitness areas. I wear a FitBit Flex and I have, but rarely wear, a Pebble Watch that links to my iPhone. I would say that at this point they are promising but are more gimmicks than truly useful. My Fitbit measures… Read More


Dan Niles: Strong Developed Markets, Weak Emerging

Dan Niles: Strong Developed Markets, Weak Emerging
by Paul McLellan on 01-22-2014 at 2:15 pm

Yesterday was Dan Niles’s economic review that he presents quarterly for GSA. As always he starts from big macroeconomic picture and ends up looking at the implications for semiconductor end-markets and thus the implication for semiconductors in general and the fabless ecosystem in particular.

The big picture is that… Read More


ESD at TSMC: IP Providers Will Need to Use Mentor to Check

ESD at TSMC: IP Providers Will Need to Use Mentor to Check
by Paul McLellan on 01-22-2014 at 1:24 pm

I met with Tom Quan of TSMC and Michael Beuler-Garcia of Mentor last week. Weirdly, Mentor’s newish buildings are the old Avant! buildings where I worked for a few weeks after selling Compass Design Automation to them. Odd sort of déja vu. Historically, TSMC has operated with EDA companies in a fairly structured way: TSMC … Read More


Have you Tried ALDEC?

Have you Tried ALDEC?
by Luke Miller on 01-22-2014 at 1:00 pm

I must admit. I was too comfortable. Let me explain, I’m a ModelSim guy from Mentor Graphics. I did not really think nor care much of the other RTL simulator options. How could someone build a better tool with respect to simulation? Let me introduce you to Aldec. Aldec was founded in 1984 by Dr. Stanley M. Hyduke. 30 years later they are… Read More


Just Released! Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry

Just Released! Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry
by Daniel Nenni on 01-22-2014 at 12:00 pm

The book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” is now available in the Kindle (mobi) and iBooks (ePub) formats. We are really looking forward to your feedback before we go to print in March. This was truly a Tom Sawyer experience for me. As the story goes Tom made whitewashing a fence seem like fun so his friends… Read More