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The Silicon ATM

The Silicon ATM
by Paul McLellan on 05-26-2014 at 4:52 pm

One of the things that eSilicon does is handle all the backend operations for the designs that they do. eSilicon is a fabless ASIC company and so the most visible part of the business is the design (not to mention IP which is a critical input into design these days). But another key part is arranging with foundries like TSMC to get the … Read More


Cadence Go (war-game) strategy

Cadence Go (war-game) strategy
by Eric Esteve on 05-26-2014 at 8:19 am

I was attending to CDN-Live in Munich last week, so I was expecting Cadence to announce new IP related acquisition like Lip-Bu Tan did last year (Cosmic Circuit, Evatronix and Tensilica). In fact, Lip-Bu was not in Munich and Charlie Huang, SVP Worldwide Field Operations and System & Verification Group, was holding the morning… Read More


IBM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Deal!

IBM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES Deal!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-25-2014 at 10:10 am

An interesting deal was announced last week, another piece in the What is Next for GlobalFoundries? puzzle. IBM is sending up to 200 employees from their East Fishkill R&D facility to GF’s Malta R&D center in Saratoga County. The first thing that comes to my mind is 10nm! Considering GF is licensing Samsung 14nm, what else… Read More


Fabless Book Giveaway at #51DAC!

Fabless Book Giveaway at #51DAC!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-24-2014 at 7:00 pm

The generosity of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem never ceases to amaze me. Paul McLellan and I wrote a book for the greater good and now key members of our industry will make sure that 1,500 people at this year’s Design Automation Conference will get copies. As a special thank you to all of our supporters SemiWiki will be hosting… Read More


GlobalFoundries Gets a New Manager in NY

GlobalFoundries Gets a New Manager in NY
by Paul McLellan on 05-24-2014 at 6:01 pm

GlobalFoundries is on the move. Of course the biggest announcement recently was the licensing of Samsung’s process to run in fab 8 in Malta, New York. This means that fab 8 will be a viable alternative, a true second source for Samsung production and one that doesn’t compete with its customers as Samsung does in many … Read More


EUV Will Never Happen

EUV Will Never Happen
by Paul McLellan on 05-23-2014 at 9:21 pm

ASML SMIC TSMC EUV DUV

I had lunch today with a guy who has to remain nameless. But he is on the edge of the semiconductor lithography thing. He told me EUV will never happen. Of course lots of people have said that. Me for one. But he said everyone knows it. The investment community, the foundries, everyone. Intel put money into ASML in the hopes that it would… Read More


A Novel Approach to IC Design in the Cloud

A Novel Approach to IC Design in the Cloud
by Daniel Nenni on 05-23-2014 at 3:00 pm

Migration to cloud computing for scientific and engineering applications is inevitable. More specifically for IC design, the benefits are significant:

  • Common IC design infrastructure to unburden each user from setting up and maintaining a separate infrastructure
  • Cloud based IC design enables global collaboration among
Read More

More Moore or No More?

More Moore or No More?
by Daniel Nenni on 05-22-2014 at 11:30 pm

Moore’s is still the law, and device scaling remains the key focus of front-end process research, however next-generation technologies–and the Big Data, cloud computing world that supports mobile, IoT, and other next-gen applications–are the new drivers, bringing new demands and challenges running Read More


Motley Fools Intel Investors Again!

Motley Fools Intel Investors Again!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-22-2014 at 12:00 pm

It really is quite a racket. Investor bloggers spread semiconductor disinformation for $.01 per click, that coincidentally covers their stock positions, and I get paid $300 per hour to explain it to Wall Street. While I appreciate the opportunity to bond with the financial people, I do wonder how these bloggers sleep at night.… Read More


Variation-Aware Custom IC Design Best Practices

Variation-Aware Custom IC Design Best Practices
by Daniel Nenni on 05-21-2014 at 1:00 pm

I’ve worked with Solido for 5 years, and it’s been a pleasure to watch the world’s top semiconductor companies and foundries adopt Solido software for their SPICE simulation flows.

Sub-28nm design starts are accelerating, growing from 150 in 2012 to 900 this year. The move to sub-28nm design nodes is being driven by consumer electronic… Read More