I remember during my first ten years as a software developer, I used many different computers such as IBM mainframes, Apollo and Sun workstations, and VAX computers. During that time I also bought my first home computer, a Macintosh. I didn’t of course think of this at the time, but the one thing they all had in common was that they did… Read More



The TSMC OIP Technical Paper Abstracts are up!
The TSMC Open Innovation Platform® (OIP) Ecosystem Forum brings TSMC’s design ecosystem member companies together to share with our customers real-case solutions for customers’ design challenges and success stories of best practice in TSMC’s design ecosystem.
More than 90% of the attendees last year said “this… Read More
Intel Really is Delaying 14nm Move-in. 450mm is Slipping Too. EUV, who knows?
I attended the semi-annual SEMI Silicon Valley Lunch meeting last week. The semiconductor equipment people are the ones that really know what is going on. People can talk about capex numbers on conference calls but it is the equipment vendors who either do or do not get orders for particular types of equipment. In turn, the analysts… Read More
Low-Power Design Analysis and Optimization for Mobile and High-Performance Computing Applications
For several decades now consumers like me have enjoyed using mobile devices including:
- Transistor radios, my first one had just 6 discreet transistors in the 1960’s
- HP 21 Calculator, used in college with Reverse Polish Notation, circa 1976
- Zenith Data Systems laptop, with two floppy drives, 1980’s
- Palm Pilot V,
Microsoft Signals the Return of "Expensive Hardware, Cheap Software"
The announcement that Steve Ballmer will step down from Microsoft within the next 12 months and just weeks after kicking off a vast re-org focused on mobile devices can only mean that the future is coming much faster than Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer had ever expected and that without a radical adoption of hardware everywhere, it will… Read More
20nm IC production needs more than a ready Foundry
I think by now all of us know, or have heard about 20nm process node, its PPA (Power, Performance, Area) advantages and challenges (complexity of high design size and density, heterogeneity, variability, stress, lithography complexities, LDEs and so on). I’m not going to get into the details of these challenges, but will ponder… Read More
NoC adoption surge at Chinese chip maker
The news from Arteris, Inc., announcing that “its interconnect fabric IP has been licensed and deployed in a majority of chips developed by China’s leading semiconductor companies for applications including consumer electronics, smartphones, and tablets,” is holding attention for several reasons. At first, because it’s… Read More
Jasper: Negronis on tap
Did you know that Jasper’s Corner Tap in San Francisco serves Negronis on tap? It’s true. They also have Hanky Panky on tap, which is a Negroni with the Campari replaced with Fernet (which everyone pronounces as Frenet despite it being…well…wrong). And here’s another thing you probably didn’t… Read More
Innovation + Thoughtful Management = Productive Expansion
After looking at various aspects of this company, to sum up, I couldn’t find any better statement than this; thoughtful management here is actually leadership with passion which achieves tangible results. This reflects in the methodology of doing things in this company which has given it a place among top EDA companies in a span… Read More
Web-based Circuit Design and Analysis
Last month I blogged about CircuitLaband received some two dozen comments, so clearly there is keen interest in using web-based tools for electronic circuit design and using the cloud to save designs plus run simulations. Today I’m reporting on TINACloud, provided by a company called DesignSoft. … Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot