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Smart mobile SoCs: Samsung

Smart mobile SoCs: Samsung
by Don Dingee on 04-19-2012 at 8:27 pm

There are few companies that impact the overall mobile supply chain more than Samsung. They are one of Apple’s largest suppliers, fabbing the processor and LCDs in the iPhone and iPad. They also design and fab the Exynos SoC at the heart of their own Galaxy line of phones and tablets.… Read More


Qualcomm Meets Jerry Sanders at 28nm

Qualcomm Meets Jerry Sanders at 28nm
by Ed McKernan on 04-19-2012 at 8:26 pm

First the good news: 4G LTE design in activity is off the charts as OEMs building smartphones, tablets and Ultrabooks are buying into the capability for product rollouts that will occur starting in September. Now the bad news: there’s not enough to go around until probably well into 2013. For a Company sitting on over $26B in cash,… Read More


"Mechanics of Creativity" at DAC 2012: Oxymoron?

"Mechanics of Creativity" at DAC 2012: Oxymoron?
by Holly Stump on 04-19-2012 at 8:13 pm

A perennial DAC highlight for me is the panel session sponsored by Women in Electronic Design. This year, it is called “The Mechanics of Creativity: What does it take to be an idea machine?”

Is this an oxymoron?

I interviewed panelist Dee McCrorey , Chief Risk Guru and Innovation Catalyst at Risktaking for Success LLC, to find out.Read More


The Carbon Decade

The Carbon Decade
by Paul McLellan on 04-19-2012 at 6:00 am

Carbon Design Systems celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. It is a celebration that the company has survived a decade but also bittersweet that the company hasn’t been acquired for a juicy premium. But we just have to accept that EDA is not a business where you can throw together a company in 18 months and sell it for $1B… Read More


Introduction to FinFET technology Part I

Introduction to FinFET technology Part I
by Tom Dillinger on 04-18-2012 at 6:00 pm

This is the first of a multi-part series, to introduce FinFET technology to SemiWiki readers. These articles will highlight the technology’s key characteristics, and describe some of the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges associated with this transition. Topics in this series will include FinFET fabrication,Read More


Linley Tech Mobile Conference

Linley Tech Mobile Conference
by Paul McLellan on 04-18-2012 at 2:14 pm

I went to part of the Linley Tech Mobile Conference. This is the current incarnation of what started life as Michael Slater’s Microprocessor Report, and the twice-yearly Microprocessor Forum. These very technical analysis organizations seem to work well when they are a small group of analysts working together to cover… Read More


Analog Circuit Optimization

Analog Circuit Optimization
by Daniel Payne on 04-18-2012 at 2:06 pm

Gim Tan at Magma did a webinar on analog circuit optimization, so I watched it today to see what I could learn about their approach. Gim is a Staff AE, so not much marketing fluff to wade through in this webinar.

The old way of designing custom analog circuits involves many tedious and error prone iterations between front-end (Schematic… Read More


Changing your IC Layout Methodology to Manage Layout Dependent Effects (LDE)

Changing your IC Layout Methodology to Manage Layout Dependent Effects (LDE)
by Daniel Payne on 04-18-2012 at 12:38 pm

Smaller IC nodes bring new challenges to the art of IC layout for AMS designs, like Layout Dependent Effects (LDE). If your custom IC design flow looks like the diagram below then you’re in for many time-consuming iterations because where you place each transistor will impact the actual Vt and Idsat values, which are now a … Read More


ARM Seahawk

ARM Seahawk
by Paul McLellan on 04-17-2012 at 8:27 pm

I wrote on Monday about ARM’s Processor Optimization Packs (POPs). In Japan they announced yesterday the Seahawk hard macro implementation in the TSMC 28HPM process. It is the highest performance ARM to date, running at over 2GHz. It is a quad-core Cortex A15.

The hard macro was developed using ARM Artisan 12-track libraries… Read More