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Are 28nm Transistors the Cheapest…Forever?

Are 28nm Transistors the Cheapest…Forever?
by Paul McLellan on 09-17-2013 at 10:43 am

It is beginning to look as if 28nm transistors, which are the cheapest per million gates compared to any earlier process such as 45nm, may also be the cheapest per million gates compared to any later process such as 20nm.

What we know so far: FinFET seems to be difficult technology because of the 3D structure and so the novel manufacturing… Read More


TSMC’s 16FinFET and 3D IC Reference Flows

TSMC’s 16FinFET and 3D IC Reference Flows
by Paul McLellan on 09-17-2013 at 2:01 am

Today TSMC announced three reference flows that they have been working on along with various EDA vendors (and ARM and perhaps other IP suppliers). The three new flows are:

  • 16FinFET Digital Reference Flow. Obviously this has full support for non-planar FinFET transistors including extraction, quantized pitch placement, low-vdd
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How to Design an LTE Modem

How to Design an LTE Modem
by Paul McLellan on 09-16-2013 at 4:24 pm

Designing an LTE modem is an interesting case study in architectural and system level design because it is pretty much on the limit of what is possible in a current process node such as 28nm. I talked to Johannes Stahl of Synopsys about how you would accomplish this with the Synopsys suite of system level tools. He is the first to admit… Read More


Intel Bay Trail Fail

Intel Bay Trail Fail
by Daniel Nenni on 09-15-2013 at 5:00 pm

Now that the IDF 2013 euphoria is fading I would like to play devil’s advocate and make a case for why Intel is still not ready to compete in the mobile market. It was very clear from the keynotes that Intel is a chip company, always has been, always will be, and that will not get them the market share they need to be relevant in mobile electronics,… Read More


Semiconductor Manufacturing in India?

Semiconductor Manufacturing in India?
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-15-2013 at 11:30 am


Last week I heard about the Indian Cabinet approving the proposal for setting up of two Fabs in India. One led by IBM, Tower Jazzand JP Associates(an Indian business house), and the other led by HSMC(Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.), ST Microelectronicsand Silterra. Indian Semiconductor community including IESARead More


Sidense and TSMC Processes

Sidense and TSMC Processes
by Paul McLellan on 09-14-2013 at 2:21 pm

I’ve written before about the basic capabilities of Sidense’s single transistor one-time programmable memory products (1T-OTP). Just to summarize, it is an anti-fuse device that works by permanently rupturing the gate oxide under the bit-cells storage transistor, something that is obviously irreversible.… Read More


Back To The Future: 50th Anniversary of EDA

Back To The Future: 50th Anniversary of EDA
by Paul McLellan on 09-12-2013 at 1:03 pm

October 16[SUP]th[/SUP] at the Computer History Museum, EDAC is hosting EDA: Back to the Future to celebrate 50 years of EDA. EDAC always has a fall event of some sort and historically it has been the Kaufman Award Dinner. This year, the Kaufman Award was presented (to Chenming Hu) at 50[SUP]th[/SUP] DAC, so the fall EDAC calendar… Read More


Analog Characterization Environment (ACE)

Analog Characterization Environment (ACE)
by Daniel Nenni on 09-12-2013 at 10:00 am

I’m looking forward to the 2013 TSMC Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum to be held Oct. 1[SUP]st[/SUP] in San Jose. One paper in particular that has my attention is titled, “An Efficient and Accurate Sign-Off Simulation Methodology for High-Performance CMOS Image Sensors,” by Berkeley Design Automation & … Read More


The Significance of Apple’s 64 Bit A7

The Significance of Apple’s 64 Bit A7
by Ed McKernan on 09-11-2013 at 9:00 pm

The disappointment amongst analysts is palpable. Dreams of low cost iphones for the masses were kicked away when Apple introduced their two new iphones at the same price points as the old ones. Clearly Apple is playing a different game than what most others are anticipating as the market runs to 5BU. The market has split into the land… Read More


Emerging Trend – Choose DRAM as per Your Design Need

Emerging Trend – Choose DRAM as per Your Design Need
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-11-2013 at 7:00 pm

Lately I was studying about new innovations in memory world such as ReRAM and Memristor. As DRAM (although it has become a commodity) has found its extensive use in mobile, PC, tablet and so on, that was an inclination too to know more about. While reviewing Cadence’s offering in memory subsystems, I came across this whitepaperwhich… Read More