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Dassault Patent on Hierarchy Management

Dassault Patent on Hierarchy Management
by Paul McLellan on 11-05-2013 at 5:05 pm

Dassault have recently been granted a patent on their approach to managing design hierarchy. I asked them how long it took from filing the patent until it was granted and they said the whole process had taken 8 years. It is a bit of an indictment of the patent system when it takes 8 years, also known as 4 or 5 process nodes, for a patent to… Read More


Can Intel Compete in the IoT?

Can Intel Compete in the IoT?
by Daniel Nenni on 11-05-2013 at 5:00 pm

Kevin Ashton, a British technology pioneer, is credited for the term “The Internet of Things” to describe an ecosystem where the Internet is connected to the physical world via ubiquitous sensors. Simply stated: rather than humans creating content for the internet IoT devices create the content. To be clear, this… Read More


nVidia: Virtual Platform/Emulation Hybrid

nVidia: Virtual Platform/Emulation Hybrid
by Paul McLellan on 11-05-2013 at 11:57 am

I was the VP marketing at VaST Systems Technology and then at Virtutech. Both companies sold virtual platform technology which consisted of two parts:

  • an extremely fast processor emulation technology that actually worked by doing a binary translation of the target binary code (e.g. an ARM) into the native instruction set of the
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Synopsys Creates a High-performance ARC Core

Synopsys Creates a High-performance ARC Core
by Paul McLellan on 11-05-2013 at 10:00 am

ARC is a family of configurable processors. Originally it was a standalone company in the UK (what is it with the UK and processor cores?) spun out from Argonaut Software. The A in ARC stood for Argonaut originally. ARC International was acquired by Virage and then Virage was acquired by Synopsys so now it is part of Synopsys Designware… Read More


GlobalFoundries and ARM

GlobalFoundries and ARM
by Paul McLellan on 11-04-2013 at 4:56 pm

GlobalFoundries had several interesting things at the ARM TechCon last week. Firstly, GlobalFoundries won the best in show award in the chip design category recognizing the best-in-class technologies introduced since the last TechCon.

Earlier in the summer GlobalFoundries and ARM announced the ARM Cortex-A12 processor,… Read More


GSA Award Nominees Announced

GSA Award Nominees Announced
by Paul McLellan on 11-04-2013 at 4:32 pm

Today GSA announced the award nominees for the 2013 awards. They will be presented at the GSA Award Dinner on Thursday December 12th at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The keynote will be given by Steve Forbes.

Recently it was announced that the 2013 Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award winners are CEO and Chairman, Dr.… Read More


Addressing Power at Architectural and RTL Levels

Addressing Power at Architectural and RTL Levels
by Paul McLellan on 11-03-2013 at 4:30 pm

Major power reductions are possible by reducing power at the RTL and system levels, and not just at the gate and physical level. In fact, as is so often the case in design, changes can have much more impact when done at the higher level, even given that at that point in the design there is less accurate feedback about changes. Later the… Read More


Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry

Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry
by Daniel Nenni on 11-03-2013 at 4:00 pm


As I have mentioned before, Paul McLellan and I are writing a book on the history of the fabless semiconductor industry. There is a preview available HERE, it will initially be sold as an e-book on SemiWiki and put into print early next year. Working with Paul McLellan and Beth Martin on this was an amazing experience. The research,… Read More


Webinar: IP Lifecycle Management: What is it, what problems does it solve?

Webinar: IP Lifecycle Management: What is it, what problems does it solve?
by Daniel Nenni on 11-03-2013 at 11:00 am

SoC’s are now dominated by IP blocks sourced either from 3rd parties or internal design teams. This means that IP is now critical to the success of the SoC, yet it is part of the design that teams have the least control over, or visibility into. Most design teams utilize at best ad-hoc methods to manage this IP, and the few that utilize… Read More


SEMICO Impact 2013 Next Wednesday

SEMICO Impact 2013 Next Wednesday
by Paul McLellan on 11-01-2013 at 5:54 pm

Semico’s IMPACT 2013 IP event is next Wednesday November 6th at the DoubleTree Hilton in San Jose.

Here’s what you get if you attend. Keynotes from:

  • Kurt Shuler of Arteris. Give him some hard questions about Qualcomm who have just acquired their technology and engineering team
  • Chris Rowen of Tensilica, recently acquired
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