There never seems to be enough time in a SoC project to simulate all of the cycles and tests that you want to run, so any technique to accelerate each run is welcomed. You can just wait for your software-based RTL simulator to finish running, or you can consider using a hardware-based accelerator approach. I learned more about one such… Read More



Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot With Timing Exceptions
Timing exceptions are ways of guiding design tools, primarily synthesis and static timing analysis (STA), but these days also place & route and perhaps other tools. Most paths in a design go from one register to the next register. Both registers are on the same clock, and the design needs to ensure that the signal can make it from… Read More
Let’s Drive To Dearborn on 19th Sep….
[The VLC developed by Edison2, winner of the Progressive Automotive X-Prize]
Now that we have “The Very Light Car” of the world at more than 100 MPG!! Yes, this is the car developed by Edison2, one among the three winners of the Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize, a global competition; Edison2 won in the main stream class. … Read More
How to Benchmark a Processor
How do you benchmark a processor? It seems like it should be easy, just run some code and see how fast it is. Traditionally processors were indeed benchmarked by raw performance like GMACS, GFLOPS, memory bandwidth and so on. But in today’s world where systems have become very complex and applications very compute intensive, the… Read More
Happy Birthday Dear Cadence…
Cadence is 25 years old this year, on June 1st if you want to be precise.
The most direct ancestor of Cadence was SDA (which might or might not have stood for Solomon Design Automation). SDA was founded by Jim Solomon in 1983. It turns out that a guy I shared an office with while we were both doing our PhDs in Edinburgh Scotland was one of … Read More
450mm Wafers are Coming!
The presentations from the 450mm sessions at SEMICON West are up now. After talking to equipment manufacturers and the foundries I’m fairly confident 450mm wafers will be under our Christmas trees in 2016, absolutely. TSMC just increased CAPEX again and you can be sure 450mm is part of it. SEMI has a 450mm Central landing page HERE… Read More
Compressing OpenGL ES textures
The 80s called, and they want lazy programming back. Remember “Mr. Mom”? Michael Keaton is talking about rewiring the house, and Martin Mull asks if he’s going to use all 220V, and Keaton responds “Yeah, 220, 221, whatever it takes.” Not knowing what’s inside can make you look silly.
Such is the case with OpenGL ES. Taking a look at … Read More
An EDA Acquisition that Worked
I first heard about Andrew Yang back in 1993 when he founded a Fast SPICE company called Anagram, then acquired by Avant! in 1996. Andrew’s latest EDA company Apache Design, Inc.was started in 2001, then acquired by ANSYS in 2011. Most EDA mergers simply don’t work because of one or more reasons, like:
- Incompatible
Save the Dates
There are several events in Silicon Valley coming up of general interest to people working in EDA and the semiconductor industry.
SEMI 16th Annual Valley Lunch Forum. August 22nd, 11.30am to 1.30pm, Santa Clara Marriott
- What are the Opportunities for Advanced Semiconductor Devices?
- Where will the year end for 2013?
- Will we have
Wanna Buy A Blackberry?
So Blackberry (formerly known as Research In Motion or RIM) is up for sale. Basically, apart from some cash in the bank, its main value now seems to be patents and, perhaps, some security technology. The murderers are in Cupertino and Mountain View, Apple’s iPhone (and iPad) and Google’s Android along with its licensees,… Read More
Flynn Was Right: How a 2003 Warning Foretold Today’s Architectural Pivot