800x100 Webinar (1)

Qualcomm and Intel Dynasty Scenario at 14nm

Qualcomm and Intel Dynasty Scenario at 14nm
by Ed McKernan on 03-08-2013 at 1:00 pm

At a different time, but certainly within the past 12 months, Paul Otellini was asked if Intel would be a Foundry for Qualcomm. His reply was that it did not leave a good taste in his mouth. Nevertheless it was not rejected and the door that remained open just a crack is likely to swing open for Qualcomm, the premier mobile silicon supplier… Read More


Silicon Summit April 18th, 2013

Silicon Summit April 18th, 2013
by Daniel Nenni on 03-07-2013 at 7:00 pm

Moore’s Law has transcended computing expectations; however, its promise will eventually reach scalability limitations due to extraordinary consumer demands. Future technology encompasses breakthroughs capable of interaction with the outside world, which the More than Moore movement achieves. Through integrating … Read More


Tanner EDA v16 OpenAccess is here!

Tanner EDA v16 OpenAccess is here!
by Daniel Nenni on 03-07-2013 at 4:00 pm

Tanner EDA is a pleasure to work with, they are big on collaboration and customers absolutely love their tools. With the Synopsys acquisition of SpringSoft, Tanner needs to step up and fill the void of the affordable Laker tools. Take a close look at their new v16 release and let me know how they are doing.

New capabilities for back-endRead More


Multiprotocol 10G-KR and PCIe Gen-3 PHY IP will support big data and smartphone explosion

Multiprotocol 10G-KR and PCIe Gen-3 PHY IP will support big data and smartphone explosion
by Eric Esteve on 03-07-2013 at 7:47 am

We have frequently said in Semiwiki how crucial is it for the SC industry to benefit from high quality PHY IP… even if, from a pure business point of view (MBA minded), PHY IP business does not look so attractive. In fact, to be able to design on-the-edge SerDes and PLL (the two key pieces), you need to build and maintain a highly skilled… Read More


A Brief History of the Foundry Industry, part 1

A Brief History of the Foundry Industry, part 1
by Paul McLellan on 03-06-2013 at 2:10 pm

The fundamental economics of the semiconductor industry are summed up in the phrase “fill the fab.” Building a fab is a major investment. With a lifetime of just a few years, the costs of owning a fab are dominated by depreciation of the fixed capital assets (the building, the air and water purification equipment, the manufacturing… Read More


Lithography from Contact Printing to EUV, DSA and Beyond

Lithography from Contact Printing to EUV, DSA and Beyond
by Paul McLellan on 03-05-2013 at 6:21 pm

I used my secret powers (being a blogger will get you a press pass) to go to the first day of the SPIE conference on advanced lithography a couple of weeks ago. Everything that happens to with process nodes seems to be driven by lithography, and everything that happens in EDA is driven by semiconductor process. It is the place to find … Read More


Verification the Mentor Way

Verification the Mentor Way
by Paul McLellan on 03-05-2013 at 3:05 pm

During DVCon I met with Steve Bailey to get an update on Mentor’s verification. They were also announcing some new capabilities. I also attended Wally Rhines keynote (primarily about verification of course, since this was DVCon; I blogged about that here) and the Mentor lunch (it was pretty much Mentor all day for me) on the… Read More


Watch the Clock

Watch the Clock
by Paul McLellan on 03-05-2013 at 2:24 pm

Clock gating is one of the most basic weapons in the armoury for reducing dynamic power on a design. All modern synthesis tools can insert clock gating cells to shut down clocking to registers when the contents of the register are not changing. The archetypal case is a register which sometimes loads a new value (when an enable signal… Read More


Integrating Formal Verification into Synthesis

Integrating Formal Verification into Synthesis
by Paul McLellan on 03-05-2013 at 1:29 pm

Formal verification can be used for many things, but one is to ensure that synthesis performs correctly and that the behavior of the output netlist is the same as the behavior of the input RTL. But designs are getting very large and formal verification is a complex tool to use, especially if the design is too large for the formal tool… Read More


Image Sensor Design for IR at Senseeker

Image Sensor Design for IR at Senseeker
by Daniel Payne on 03-05-2013 at 10:30 am

Image sensors are all around us with the cell phone being a popular example, and 35mm DSLR camera being another one. Last week I spoke with Kenton Veeder, an engineer at Senseeker that started his own image sensor IP and consulting services company. Instead of focusing on the consumer market, Kenton’s company does sensor … Read More