Ground. It’s that little downward-pointing triangle that somehow works miracles on every schematic. It looks very simple until one has to tackle modern power distribution network (PDN) design on a board with high speed and high power draw components, and you soon discover ground is a complicated fairy tale with a lot of influences.… Read More





Tackling Circuit Level EM Analysis for RF, MMW and High Speed Analog Designs
Accuracy, ease of use and performance have always been paramount for electromagnetic analysis software. Historically, it has been hard to find all three of these qualities in one tool. The result is that many high speed analog and RF designers resort to using multiple, often overlapping, tools to get the job done.
Lorentz Solution… Read More
See Hogan’s Heroes at DAC 2013: The EDA Hunger Games!
Risks and Rewards of Engaging with EDA Startups:The Hunger Games!
Doing business with EDA startups comes with both risks and rewards. The Hogan’s Heroes panel at DAC 2013 features key decision makers from fabless, startup and vc firms sharing candid opinions on this risk/reward equation, and the financial and technical issues… Read More
Samsung 28nm Still Does Not Yield?
As if Samsung didn’t have enough to worry about with their new neighbor to the North (Korea) declaring war, Samsung 28nm is still NOT yielding. In my previous blog “Can Samsung Deliver as Promised?” I wondered what will power the new Galaxy S4 phones that Samsung has been aggressively marketing. You would think it would be a 28nm version… Read More
Circuit Analysis & Debugging
In EDA we often talk about how fast a SPICE circuit simulator is, or about capacity and accuracy compared to silicon measurements. Yes, speed, capacity and accuracy are important, however when talking to actual transistor-level circuit designers you discover something quite different, most of their time is spent doing debugging,… Read More
An Analog IC Router
Earlier this week I wrote about a Goliath in EDA, Synopsys, and their new analog router, today it’s the David in EDA, Pulsic and their Unity Analog Router. I spoke with several people from Pulsic by phone:
- Christopher Jost – San Jose
- Dave Noble – San Jose
- Fumiaki Sato – Tokyo, Japan
Dan Niles Economic Review: Q1 is the Bottom
Every quarter GSA runs a webinar with Dan Niles of Alpha One Capital Partners on what the semiconductor outlook is. He doesn’t actually focus on the semiconductor industry itself, demand for chips is really driven by economic conditions in the major markets around the world. People who are unemployed, or in Cyprus, don’t… Read More
Design Automation Conference: Go For It!
The conference program for DAC is now live here including the conference itself, keynotes, some other special tracks, the pavilion panels and more. And the must-see panel is on emulation at 4pm on Tuesday afternoon moderated by…well, that would be me so I’m a bit biased.
Mentor at TSMC Technology Symposium
TSMC will host their annual technology symposium at several locations in the U.S. on April 9th in San Jose, April 16th in Austin, and April 23rd in Boston. TSMC will discuss the market outlook, design enablement, and technology for high-speed computing, mobile communications, connectivity and storage, CIS, embedded flash, … Read More
Signal integrity: more than just SerDes analysis
When Cadence acquired Sigrity in 2012, two motives were involved: get more competitive in state of the art signal integrity analysis, and grab a foothold into the other vendor’s PCB flows in an area that is developing as a real sore spot for digital designers.
Just as the days where PCB tape-out meant actually using tape are over, … Read More
Facing the Quantum Nature of EUV Lithography