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Hardware Intelligence for Low Power

Hardware Intelligence for Low Power
by guruvadhiraj on 09-05-2012 at 9:42 am

Low power is the hottest topic these days. The designers of hardware and software are trying to find instances where they can save power . This article tries to identify the role that can be played by the hardware which traditionally it is always software who drives it.… Read More


Wiring Harness Design

Wiring Harness Design
by Paul McLellan on 09-04-2012 at 5:18 pm

In 2003 Mentor acquired a company doing wiring harness design. Being a semiconductor guy this wasn’t an area I’d had much to do with. But more than most semiconductor people I expect.

But back when I was an undergraduate, I had worked as a programmer for a subsidiary of Philips called Unicam that made a huge range of spectrometers… Read More


A Brief History of Semiconductors: the Foundry Transition

A Brief History of Semiconductors: the Foundry Transition
by Paul McLellan on 09-04-2012 at 11:30 am

A modern fab can cost as much as $10B dollars. That’s billion with a B. Since it has a lifetime of perhaps 5 years, owning a fab costs around $50 per second and that’s before you buy any silicon or chemicals or design any chips. Obviously anyone owning a fab had better be planning on making and selling a lot of chips if they are going to make… Read More


3D Memories

3D Memories
by Paul McLellan on 09-02-2012 at 4:42 pm

At DesignCon earlier this year, Tim Hollis of Micron gave an interesting presentation on 3D memories. For sure the first applications of true 3D chips are going to be stacks of memory die and memory on logic. The gains from high bandwidth access to the memory and the physically closer distance from memory to processor are huge.

Micron… Read More


A Brief History of Cadence Design Systems

A Brief History of Cadence Design Systems
by Daniel Nenni on 09-01-2012 at 8:10 pm

EDA software for IC and system design became a commercial business in the early 1980s. In those days, 3 companies – Daisy Systems, Mentor Graphics, and Valid Logic Systems – dominated the emerging EDA industry. However, two small startups that emerged in the early 1980s grew rapidly and merged to form Cadence Design Systems in 1988.… Read More


The Need for OASIS in Post-layout IC Databases

The Need for OASIS in Post-layout IC Databases
by Daniel Payne on 08-31-2012 at 7:20 pm

OASIS is a hierarchical IC file format used for IC designs that is gradually replacing GDS II throughout the mask data stages. The compelling reason for using OASIS has always been the reduction of file size, and speed up of processing times through the use of hierarchy and fewer translation steps.

At the 45nm node an actual M1 layer… Read More


Toshiba Corp. has cancelled plans to sell (ARM-based processor) computers …bad news for Toshiba, TI and the end user

Toshiba Corp. has cancelled plans to sell (ARM-based processor) computers …bad news for Toshiba, TI and the end user
by Eric Esteve on 08-31-2012 at 11:55 am

This news announced two weeks ago is not really good news for those expecting to see this new generation of computers, running Windows RT OS and no more based on x86 processor but on ARM CPU core, coming on the market. The reason invoked by Toshiba was “delays in getting adequate supplies of components” and, even if Toshiba did not specifically… Read More


Arteris joins Inc. 500 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies… thanks to Arteris customers!

Arteris joins Inc. 500 List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies… thanks to Arteris customers!
by Eric Esteve on 08-31-2012 at 4:35 am

Arteris, founded in 2003, is the inventor and leading supplier of network-on-chip (NoC) interconnect IP solutions. Can we say that the company is still a start-up? I would say yes, as their flagship product, FlexNoc (Network on Chip IP function) was a completely new concept when it was introduced. As for every disruptive technology,… Read More


Did Qualcomm and Apple Attempt to Bribe TSMC?

Did Qualcomm and Apple Attempt to Bribe TSMC?
by Daniel Nenni on 08-30-2012 at 7:45 pm

It’s amazing how these rumors start and go viral. People are literally laughing here in Taiwan. I remember I wrote something that I thought was obviously satire and less than a week later someone repeated it back to me as fact since they “read it on the internet somewhere.”

According to Bloomberg: Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Qualcomm Inc.Read More


Smart mobile SoCs: Made in China

Smart mobile SoCs: Made in China
by Don Dingee on 08-29-2012 at 2:00 pm

One of the comments to previous installments of this series was that there isn’t much left for the merchant suppliers of smart mobile SoCs, considering Apple and Samsung have majority share and design their own parts. The theory is this makes it hard for many suppliers to continue investing at the resource levels needed to bring … Read More