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GlobalFoundries 2012 Update!

GlobalFoundries 2012 Update!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-04-2012 at 8:55 pm

What’s new with Glofo? Quite a bit actually. It was interesting to see a Made in America: Global Companies Expand in U.S. Towns segment on semiconductors! Give it a look, I enjoyed it. It’s an election year, jobs are key to any election, so it did not surprise me to see President Obama making the rounds:… Read More


It is free after you pay for it and there is a one-time annual fee: The Case for FD-SOI

It is free after you pay for it and there is a one-time annual fee: The Case for FD-SOI
by Camille Kokozaki on 05-04-2012 at 7:09 am

In one of Portlandia’s TV program sketches, there is a funny interchange between a carrier salesperson and Fred Armisen (of SNL fame) who was trying to buy a phone. One chuckle line was a statement by the seller that the phone was free after paying for it and that there was a one-time annual fee. With this anecdote as a mental backdrop,… Read More


28nm Layout Needs Signoff Quality at Design Time

28nm Layout Needs Signoff Quality at Design Time
by Pawan Fangaria on 05-03-2012 at 8:30 pm

We are all aware that at 28nm and below several types of complex layout effects manifest themselves into the design and pose a herculean task, with several re-spins to correct them at pre-tapeout. It’s apparent that the layout needs to be correct by construction at the very beginning during the design stage.

Having worked at CadenceRead More


The Biggest EDA Company You’ve Never Heard Of

The Biggest EDA Company You’ve Never Heard Of
by Paul McLellan on 05-02-2012 at 8:30 pm

There’s this EDA company. They have over 100 tapeouts. They have a $28M in funding. They have 250 people. And you’ve never heard of them. Or at least I hadn’t.

They are ICScape. They started in 2005 with an investment from Acorn Campus Ventures and delivered their first product, ClockExplorer, in 2007 and their… Read More


Use a SpyGlass to Look for Faults

Use a SpyGlass to Look for Faults
by Paul McLellan on 05-02-2012 at 5:24 pm

There is a famous quote (probably attributed to Mark Twain who gets them all by default) “When looking for faults use a mirror not a spyglass.” Of course if you have RTL of your IP or your design then using a SpyGlass is clearly the better way to go. But it is getting even better since there is a new enhanced release, SpyGlass… Read More


Smart mobile SoCs: NVIDIA

Smart mobile SoCs: NVIDIA
by Don Dingee on 05-02-2012 at 4:16 pm

When the name synonymous with personal computer graphics decided to turn their engineering talent toward the mobile business, heads turned. NVIDIA has rather quickly gained a foothold in tablets by squeezing four high performance processing cores, twelve graphics cores, and more onto a Tegra 3.… Read More


Carl Icahn Blinks in Bid for Mentor Graphics

Carl Icahn Blinks in Bid for Mentor Graphics
by Daniel Payne on 05-02-2012 at 3:42 pm

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One year ago activist investor Carl Icahn started a hostile takeover bid for Mentor Graphics and was able to offer up three new board members, however yesterday we read that Mentor Graphics will:

  • Have their annual shareholder meeting on May 30th
  • Two of Icahn’s board members are not on the roster for renewal
  • Mr. Icahn has no
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IC design at 20nm with TSMC and Synopsys

IC design at 20nm with TSMC and Synopsys
by Daniel Payne on 05-02-2012 at 10:25 am

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While the debate rages on about 28nm yield at foundry juggernaut TSMC, on Monday I attended a webinar on 20nm IC design hosted by TSMC and Synopsys. Double Patterning Technology (DPT) becomes a requirement for several layers of your 20nm IC design which then impact many of your EDA tools and methodology.… Read More


ARM Models: Carbon Inside

ARM Models: Carbon Inside
by Paul McLellan on 05-01-2012 at 10:00 pm

ARM used to build their own models. By hand. They had an instruction-set simulator (ISS) called ARMulator that was largely intended for software development, and cycle-accurate models that were intended to run within digital simulators for development of the hardware of ARM-based systems.

There were two problems with this … Read More