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Free Pass to SEMICON West!

Free Pass to SEMICON West!
by Beth Martin on 07-03-2013 at 1:00 pm

SEMICON West is next week, July 9-11 in San Francisco. If you haven’t signed up, and want to attend for free instead of $100,

1) Send an email to silicon_test@mentor.com with subject line “Semicon pass.”
2) Register for SEMICON West
3) After registering, download the SEMICON West mobile app and start building your schedule. Here… Read More


LicenseMonitor Users’ Group Silicon Valley

LicenseMonitor Users’ Group Silicon Valley
by Paul McLellan on 07-03-2013 at 3:03 am

If DAC is the most general event in our industry, then the LicenseMonitor Users’ Group Silicon Valley has to be one of the most focused. It was held back in May but one of the key presentations was Brian Janes of RTDA talking about what is new in the latest version of LicenseMonitor which is 2013.03.

Like a number of people at RTDA,… Read More


Full Chip IR Drop Analysis using Distributed Multi Processing

Full Chip IR Drop Analysis using Distributed Multi Processing
by Daniel Payne on 07-02-2013 at 6:56 pm

IR drop analysis across your board, package and SoC ensures that your Power Delivery Network (PDN) is robust, and that your system will function to spec. There are both static and dynamic approaches to IR drop analysis of a full-chip with billions of transistors, while the dynamic approach produces the most accurate results compared… Read More


Globalization of Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry

Globalization of Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry
by Daniel Nenni on 07-02-2013 at 3:00 am

The following is a brief summery of an article co authored by SemiWiki member Apek Mulay.It is definitely worth a read when you get a chance:

Globalization of Semiconductor Manufacturing Industry: From Deception to Reformation Towards Recovering US Macro-Micro Economic Losses


During the recent recession (since 2007), many… Read More


A Brief History of VLSI Technology, part 1

A Brief History of VLSI Technology, part 1
by Paul McLellan on 07-01-2013 at 8:15 pm

VLSI Technology was founded in 1981 by Dan Floyd, Jack Baletto and Gunnar Wetlesen who had worked together at Signetics. The initial investments were by Hambrecht and Quist, a cross between a VC and a bank, and by Evans and Sutherland, the simulation/graphics company.

The fourth person to join the company was Doug Fairbairn. He … Read More


Smartphone Shipment Explosion Sustained by $50-$75 devices, Mostly in China

Smartphone Shipment Explosion Sustained by $50-$75 devices, Mostly in China
by Eric Esteve on 07-01-2013 at 9:21 am

Until recently, talking about smartphone incredible shipment growth was understood as shipments of A5 iPhone or Galaxy Note, and this was true. Devices priced at $500 or more are shipping like baguette in Paris, but this fact is only true in Europe, Korea, Japan or USA. Does that means that people living populated countries like… Read More


When Atrenta celebrates with STM and CEA-Leti in Grenoble

When Atrenta celebrates with STM and CEA-Leti in Grenoble
by Eric Esteve on 07-01-2013 at 3:20 am

Grenoble is French city well-known within the Semiconductor industry to be one of the last location counting wafer fabs, not only in France but in fact in Europe. Back in the 70’s, under French government impulse, through the Commisariat à l’Energie Atomique (CEA) and the LETI subsidiary in charge of Electronic related research,… Read More


Workload-tuned cores seeing greater interest

Workload-tuned cores seeing greater interest
by Don Dingee on 06-30-2013 at 10:00 pm

Is it possible to design a processor with very high performance and low power consumption? To answer that, embedded illuminati are now focusing on designs tuned to specific workloads – creating a tailored processor that does a few things very efficiently, with nothing extra.… Read More


The Future of Mobile Semiconductor Devices

The Future of Mobile Semiconductor Devices
by Daniel Nenni on 06-30-2013 at 5:00 pm


During my trip to Taiwan I hopped on over to Hong Kong for a speaking engagement. One of the things I do as an “Internationally Recognized Industry Expert” is help the financial world understand the semiconductor landscape as it pertains to SoCs and mobile devices. Usually I do this over the phone or in writing but I prefer to do it in… Read More


Today’s Program is Brought To You by the Letter A

Today’s Program is Brought To You by the Letter A
by Paul McLellan on 06-28-2013 at 9:09 pm

What do nVidia, Freescale and GlobalFoundries have in common? They are semiconductor companies? They are ARM licensees? They are doing 28nm chips? They all have the letter ‘a’ in their names?

All true, but that’s not what I was thinking of. But the letter ‘a’ is a clue since Apache (and Ansys) begin with ‘a’. All three companies have… Read More