SILVACO 073125 Webinar 800x100

Microsoft Buys Nokia

Microsoft Buys Nokia
by Paul McLellan on 09-02-2013 at 11:21 pm

OK. I was wrong. Microsoft did buy Nokia’s handset business. For $7.2B, which for a company that just wrote off nearly $1B on tablets isn’t that much. Nokia is a company that had a peak valuation of $110B although it is not clear how much of that is in the deal versus out of the deal.

Details from Reuters here.

Elop is expected… Read More


Low-Power Design Webinar – What I Learned

Low-Power Design Webinar – What I Learned
by Daniel Payne on 09-02-2013 at 7:00 pm

You can only design and optimize for low-power SoC designs if you can actually simulate the entire Chip, Package and System together. The engineers at ANSYS-Apachehave figured out how to do that and talked about their design for power methodology in a webinar today. I listened to Arvind Shanmugavel present a few dozen slides and… Read More


Must See SoC IP!

Must See SoC IP!
by Daniel Nenni on 09-02-2013 at 5:30 pm


IP is the center of the semiconductor universe and nobody knows this better than Design and Reuse. The D&R website was launched in 1997 targeting the emerging commercial semiconductor IP market. Today, with more than 15,000 IP/SOC product descriptions updated daily, D&R is the #1 IP site matching customer requirements… Read More


Analog ECOs and Design Reviews: How to Do Them Better

Analog ECOs and Design Reviews: How to Do Them Better
by Paul McLellan on 09-02-2013 at 1:00 am

One of the challenges in doing a complex analog or mixed signal design is that things get out of step. One designer is tweaking the schematic and re-simulating, another is tweaking the layout of transistors, another is changing the routing. This is not because the design flow is messed up, but rather it reflects reality. If you wait… Read More


A Brief History of TSMC OIP

A Brief History of TSMC OIP
by Paul McLellan on 09-01-2013 at 9:00 pm

The history of TSMC and its Open Innovation Platform (OIP) is, like almost everything in semiconductors, driven by the economics of semiconductor manufacturing. Of course ICs started 50 years ago at Fairchild (very close to where Google is headquartered today, these things go in circles). The planarization approach, whereby… Read More


Reliability sign-off has several aspects – One Solution

Reliability sign-off has several aspects – One Solution
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-01-2013 at 5:00 pm

Here, I am talking about reliability of chip design in the context of electrical effects, not external factors like cosmic rays. So, the electrical factors that could affect reliability of chips could be excessive power dissipation, noise, EM (Electromigration), ESD (Electrostatic Discharge), substrate noise coupling and… Read More


Real Heroes Don’t Wear Capes!

Real Heroes Don’t Wear Capes!
by Daniel Nenni on 08-31-2013 at 6:30 pm


Real Heroes have many different jobs. My oldest son is a Math Teacher, he is a hero. You may have read about him before, he is the co-developer and administrator of SemiWiki. Think about it, without math where would the world be today?

My other son is a Fireman, Emergency Medical Technician, and also a hero. He is at the Rim Fire in Northern… Read More


OTP Memory to Build Smarter Power Management

OTP Memory to Build Smarter Power Management
by Paul McLellan on 08-29-2013 at 11:20 pm

All chips have critical power management requirements, often with multiple supply voltages. Digital power management ICs (PMICs) are commonplace to convert unregulated voltages from batteries and noisy power supplies to fully regulated accurate power to keep even the most sensitive chips performing.

Powervation is a company… Read More


Semiconductor Market Back to Healthy Growth

Semiconductor Market Back to Healthy Growth
by Bill Jewell on 08-29-2013 at 9:00 pm

The worldwide semiconductor market is back to a healthy level of growth. WSTS data shows the 2Q 2013 global semiconductor market was up 6.0% from 1Q 2013 – the strongest quarter-to-quarter growth since 6.6% growth in 2Q 2011. Recent forecasts for 2013 market growth range from a conservative 2.1% from WSTS to an optimistic… Read More


Foundry 2.0: Why It Is Different And Why You Should Care

Foundry 2.0: Why It Is Different And Why You Should Care
by Paul McLellan on 08-29-2013 at 5:22 pm

If you have been to an Ajit Manocha keynote recently, he talks a lot about Foundry 2.0. I covered his keynote at Semicon West in July here. Dan Hutcheson of VLSI Research interviewed Ajit about this new business model to identify it, see how it was different and see how GlobalFoundries were executing the model differently from the … Read More