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How We Got Here…

How We Got Here…
by Paul McLellan on 01-22-2013 at 12:54 pm

Over at the GSA Forum website I have an article on the history of the semiconductor industry. It is actually based on a couple of brief history of semiconductor blogs (here and here) I published here on SemiWiki last year but edited down a lot and tightened up.

Since the start of the year seems to be the time for predictions, here are the… Read More


New PCI Express 3.0 Equalization Requirements

New PCI Express 3.0 Equalization Requirements
by Eric Esteve on 01-22-2013 at 9:18 am

PCI Express 3.0 increased the supported data rate to 8 Gbps, which effectively doubles the data rate supported by PCI Express 2.0. While the data rate was increased, no improvement was made to the channels. As such, an 8 Gbps channel in PCIe 3.0 experiences significantly more loss than one implemented in PCIe 2.0. To compensate for… Read More


First Time, Every Time

First Time, Every Time
by SStalnaker on 01-21-2013 at 7:10 pm

While this iconic advertising phrase was first used to describe the ink reliability of a ballpoint pen, it perfectly summarizes the average consumer’s attitude toward automobile reliability as well. We don’t really care how it’s done, as long as everything in our car works first time, every time. Even when that includes heated… Read More


Double Patterning for IC Design, Extraction and Signoff

Double Patterning for IC Design, Extraction and Signoff
by Daniel Payne on 01-21-2013 at 3:27 pm

TSMC and Synopsys hosted a webinar in December on this topic of double patterning and how it impacts the IC extraction flow. The 20nm process node has IC layout geometries so closely spaced that the traditional optical-based lithography cannot be used, instead lower layers like Poly and Metal 1 require a new approach of using two… Read More


FD-SOI is Worth More Than Two Cores

FD-SOI is Worth More Than Two Cores
by Paul McLellan on 01-20-2013 at 10:00 pm

This is the second blog entry about an ST Ericsson white-paper on multiprocessors in mobile. The first part was here.

The first part of the white-paper basically shows that for mobile the optimal number of cores is two. It is much better to use process technology (and good EDA) to run the processor at higher frequency rather than add… Read More


Wall Street Does NOT Know Semiconductors!

Wall Street Does NOT Know Semiconductors!
by Daniel Nenni on 01-20-2013 at 6:00 pm

In my never ending quest to promote the fabless semiconductor ecosystem I cannot pass up a discouraging word about one of the oldest financial services companies. You can consult with me for $300 per hour to answer your questions about the semiconductor industry on the phone or you can buy me lunch and get it in person (lunch will probably… Read More


Mobile SoCs: Two Cores are Better Than Four?

Mobile SoCs: Two Cores are Better Than Four?
by Paul McLellan on 01-20-2013 at 8:00 am

I came across an interesting white-paper from ST Ericsson on two topics: multi-processors in mobile platforms and FD-SOI. FD-SOI is the ST Microelectronics alternative to FinFETs for 20nm and below. It stands for Fully-Depeleted Silicon-on-Insulator. But I’m going to save that part of the white-paper for another blog… Read More


What did CES 2013 mean for #SemiEDA?

What did CES 2013 mean for #SemiEDA?
by Don Dingee on 01-18-2013 at 4:55 pm

CES is the preeminent gadget show, and in the LVCC South Hall a wave has been building for some time. It’s now the place where chipsets are introduced, and this year saw a wide range of introductions from Atmel, Bosch, Broadcom, Intel (OK, they’re still in Central Hall), InvenSense, Marvell, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Samsung, ST-Ericsson,… Read More


Yawn… New EDA Leader Results Are Coming

Yawn… New EDA Leader Results Are Coming
by Randy Smith on 01-18-2013 at 4:00 pm

We will soon start to see the quarterly financial reporting installments of the “Big 3” public EDA companies. I predict they will be as boring as usual. I am not sure if I would want it any differently though.

Back in the 90s there were times when it was truly interesting to wait to see what Cadence, Mentor, or later Synopsys, might announce.… Read More


Oasys Has a New CEO

Oasys Has a New CEO
by Paul McLellan on 01-18-2013 at 2:21 pm

Scott Seaton is the new CEO of Oasys Design Systems. Paul van Besouw, the CEO since the company’s founding, becomes the CTO. I met Scott last year when I was doing some consulting work for Carbon Design where he was VP of sales (the new VP sales at Carbon is Hal Conklin, by the way).

I talked to Scott about why he had joined Oasys. … Read More