Production of electronic equipment (including computers, communications, consumer, etc.) has been sluggish over the last year in all key regions of the world except China. The chart below shows three-month-average change versus a year ago for electronics production in local currency through April 2013 (May 2013 for China).… Read More



Kathryn Kranen: The Problem with EDA is…
Kathryn Kranen, CEO of Jasper Design Automation, got to give her view of the future of EDA on the Thursday of DAC. For many years she has been on the EDAC board and is currently chair. When she first was on the board she talked to many of the stakeholders in the EDA ecosystem: EDA companies, IP companies, semiconductor companies, academics,… Read More
Remember FPGA Memory
We must admit the excitement of the FinFETs and all that coupled with the enormous amount of DSPs and BRAMs in the FPGA world is very cool. They even have ARMs, and I highly recommend that they get Legs then they can run around and everything and fit in with the rest of us. Perhaps the Feds can grant them immigration status and they could… Read More
Visual AMS Debug, an update at DAC
If you’re involved with AMS or transistor-level IC design then having visual tools will help you design and debug quicker. At DAC I met with Gerhard Angst, President and Founder of Concept Engineering to get an update.
Gerhard Angst (center), Concept Engineering… Read More
Full Visibility in ASIC Prototypes at DAC
ASIC prototyping from multiple vendors using FPGA boards was popular at DAC again this year in Austin, Texas. I stopped by the Tektronix booth for a few minutes to meet with Dave Orecchio to get an update.
Dave Orecchio (right), Tektronix… Read More
Fujitsu, Mediatek, Richtek and Synopsys om Custom IC Design
Synopsys has been acquiring EDA and IP companies at a fast clip over the past few years and it’s often made me wonder how they are going to craft a coherent tool flow for custom IC design. At DACthis year I learned that for schematic capture the winning tool is Custom Designer SE– a relatively new tool, while the IC layout… Read More
Is Your Synchronizer Doing its Job (Part 2)?
In Part 1 of this topic I discussed what it takes to estimate the mean time between failures (MTBF) of a single stage synchronizer. Because supply voltages are decreasing and transistor thresholds have been pushed up to minimize leakage, the shortened MTBF of many synchronizer circuits at nanoscale process nodes is presenting… Read More
TSMC and Xilinx on the FinFAST Track!
The power of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem never ceases to amaze me. On one hand you have the Intel backed press crowing about Intel stealing Altera from TSMC. On the other hand you have Xilinx and TSMC crowing about a new ‘one-team’ approach. If you are interested in the real story you’ve come to the right place.
“Altera’s… Read More
Pat Pistilli: the first cell library, the first computer-printed label and more
At the DAC 50th anniversary banquet, Pat Pistilli won the award for most tenacious attendee, having been to all 50 DACs. Well, and for creating DAC and sustaining it. He was general chair for the first DAC (not yet called DAC) and, of course, would eventually form MP Associates with his wife Marie, which still runs DAC today. In 2010… Read More
Can we really find a way to speed-up Processor & DSP core designs?
Once upon a time, ASIC designers involved in Processor design, like I was, for the first time in 1987 for Thomson CSF and again in 1994 for Texas Instruments, at that time supporting height (8) ASIC designed by another French company, the Advanced Computer Research Institute (ACRI), had to re-invent the wheel almost every day. When… Read More
TSMC N3 Process Technology Wiki