Semiwiki 400x100 1 final

Embedding 100K probes in FPGA-based prototypes

Embedding 100K probes in FPGA-based prototypes
by Don Dingee on 11-06-2012 at 8:15 pm

As RTL designs in FPGA-based ASIC prototypes get bigger and bigger, the visibility into what is happening inside the IP is dropping at a frightening rate. Where designers once had several hundred observation probes per million gates, those same several hundred probes – or fewer if deeper signal captures are needed – are now spread… Read More


A Most Significant Man

A Most Significant Man
by Beth Martin on 11-06-2012 at 8:10 pm

Most of us live perfectly good lives without distinction, fame, or note. Others rack up the honors, filling their walls and resumes with recognition of their brilliance. Like Dr. Janusz Rajski.

Rajski is the director of engineering for the test products at Mentor Graphics, an IEEE Fellow, and the inventor of embedded deterministic… Read More


Should ARM care about MIPS acquisition?

Should ARM care about MIPS acquisition?
by Eric Esteve on 11-06-2012 at 3:09 am

It was not really a surprise to learn that, finally, MIPS have been sold, as the company was officially for sale since April 2012. Nevertheless, the interesting part of this news comes from the buyer’ identity: Imagination Technologies. Imagination is an UK based company, like ARM, selling processor IP cores, like ARM, but the … Read More


Waiting or EUV – Another View on the ReRAM Roadmap

Waiting or EUV – Another View on the ReRAM Roadmap
by Ed McKernan on 11-05-2012 at 9:03 pm

It is ‘Quarterly’ financial report time for many companies and one can occasionally find some interesting snippets in the transcripts of the calls which normally accompany these announcements. For example, SanDisk appear to have an encouraging quarter, reversing sales declines seen through Q1 and Q2. However, what caught … Read More


Gustafson on Parallel Algorithms

Gustafson on Parallel Algorithms
by Paul McLellan on 11-05-2012 at 4:54 pm

At the keynote for ICCAD this morning, John Gustafson of AMD (where he is Chief Graphics Product Architect as well as a Fellow) talked about parallel algorithms. Like Gene Amdahl, whose law states that parallel algorithms are limited by the part that cannot be parallelized (if 10% is serial, then even if the other part takes place… Read More


16nm FinFET versus 20nm Planar!

16nm FinFET versus 20nm Planar!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-04-2012 at 8:10 pm

The common theme amongst semiconductor ecosystem conferences this year is FinFETS, probably the most exciting technology we will see this decade. A lot has been written on SemiWiki about FinFETS, it is one of the top trending search terms, but there is some confusion about the process naming so let me attempt to explain.

In planar… Read More


Chip On Wafer On Substrate (CoWoS)

Chip On Wafer On Substrate (CoWoS)
by Daniel Payne on 11-03-2012 at 5:19 pm

tsmc cowos test vehicle1

Our EDA industry loves three letter acronyms so credit the same industry for creating a five letter acronym CoWoS. Two weeks ago TSMC announced tape-out of their first CoWoS test chip integrating with JEDEC Wide I/O mobile DRAM interface, making me interested enough to read more about it. At the recent TSMC Open Innovation Platform… Read More


Electromigration (EM) with an Electrically-Aware IC Design Flow

Electromigration (EM) with an Electrically-Aware IC Design Flow
by Daniel Payne on 11-03-2012 at 4:05 pm

fig2a

Electromigration (EM) is a reliability concern for IC designers because a failure in the field could spell disaster as in lost human life or even bankruptcy for a consumer electronics company. In the old days of IC design we would follow a sequential and iterative design process of:… Read More


ARM TechCon 2012 Trip Report

ARM TechCon 2012 Trip Report
by Daniel Nenni on 11-02-2012 at 12:00 pm

I must say the ARM conference gets better every year, as do the attendance numbers. More than 4,000 people showed up including 5 SemiWiki bloggers, two of which I had not yet had the pleasure of meeting.

First I have to mention my favorite vendor booth. I don’t remember what company it was but the girls in fishnet stockings giving out… Read More