ASIC design service companies are an essential piece of the SC ecosystem, as well as Silicon Foundries, EDA and IP vendors. Their customers range from pure fabless with no ASIC design resources, who need a third party to turn a concept into a real product (IC) and then market and sale it, to large IDM temporarily lacking design resource… Read More




Startups: the Biggest Challenge
What is the biggest challenge facing an EDA startup today? By a startup, I mean a brand new company, not a company that already has a few customers and is either on a fast path to success or a slower path whereby the company can continue to grow slowly forever.
Obviously, one challenge is the funding environment. Since EDA acquisitions… Read More
Seeing inside SoC designs, from the beginning
Engineers have this fascination with how things work. They are thrilled to tear stuff apart, and sometimes to even be able to put it back together afterwords. So I can keep my recovering engineer card, I thought I’d take a few moments and look inside a technology Daniel Payne and I have been covering here, exploring where the idea started… Read More
Dynamic/Leakage Power Reduction in Memories
Embedded memories have an important impact on power. SoCs that integrate multiple functions on a single silicon die are at the heart of many electronic devices. As process geometries have scaled, design teams have used more and more of the additional silicon real estate available to integrate embedded memories that serve as scratch-pads,… Read More
TSMC ♥ Oasys
Oasys has joined the TSMC Soft-IP Alliance Program. This means that TSMC IP partners have access to a new RTL exploration tool to improve QoR and reduce the iterations needed for design closure. In modern process nodes, RTL engineers implementing complex IP cores for graphics, networking, and mobile computing are struggling … Read More
Advanced Technology-Design-Manufacturing Co-optimization
I spent some quality time with Subi Kengeri, Vice President, Technology Architecture, Office of the CTO, GLOBALFOUNDRIES in Las Vegas during CES. Great guy, he worked at Silicon Access, Virage and TSMC before GF. One thing you should know about embedded memory guys, SRAM is the first thing that goes through a new process so they … Read More
Building Energy-Efficient ICs from the Ground Up
My oldest son just upgraded Smart Phones from a 3″ display to a 4.5″ display and was shocked to discover that his battery barely lasted 8 hours, so I welcomed him to the reality of limited battery life in modern SoC-based mobile devices. There is some hope in increasing battery life for our consumer-oriented devices … Read More
Going to DAC 2013 in Austin? The Country’s Best Barbecue is a 20 Minute Walk
Going to DAC? I just booked my plane ticket last weekend since flights from the Bay Area to wherever DAC is are so often overbooked. It’s in Austin this year in case you’ve been living under a rock. There are lots of reasons to go, from the academic conference to the world’s biggest EDA exhibition. And here is one … Read More
Catch Jasper at SemiIsrael Verification Day and at DVCon 2013
Jasper is presenting at both ends of the world at both ends of February.
First in Israel, it is SemiIsrael Verification Day 2013 on February 5th (next Tuesday) at Green House in Tel Aviv.
- Zihad Hanna, VP of Research and Chief Architect and General Manager of Jasper Israel will be talking about Security Formal Verification of Hardware
Virtuoso is 20nm-ready
I already talked about how Cadence is splitting Virtuoso into two. Anyway, it is now officially announced. The 6.1 version will continue to be developed as a sort of Virtuoso classic for people doing designs off the bleeding edge that don’t require the new features. And a new Virtuoso 12.1 intended for people doing 20nm and… Read More
Memory Innovation at the Edge: Power Efficiency Meets Green Manufacturing