There were keynotes from all three semiconductor partners in the Common Platform Alliance and, as if to show how common they are, they all talked about the problems that need to be addressed in the next decade and a half and they all said pretty much the same thing. Gary Patton of IBM went first and so he got to say everything first. Plus,… Read More
Timing Closure for ECOs in your SOC Design
I decided to attend a webinar today hosted by Synopsys, “Streamline Your PrimeTime ECO Flow For Fastest Setup, Hold and Timing DRC Closure.” The format was to present slides first then hold for questions until the end. Enough time was spent on questions which made this webinar different than most other webinars I’ve… Read More
SICAS is dead (and WSTS isn’t feeling too good)
The SICAS (Semiconductor Industry Capacity Statistics) program has been discontinued after the release of the 4Q 2011 data, available through the SIA at http://www.sia-online.org/industry-statistics/semiconductor-capacity-utilization-sicas-reports/
The latest report stated: “Due to significant changes in the… Read More
CDNLive: the Keynotes
There were three keynotes at CDNLive this morning, and one theme ran through them: collaboration. In fact there was one specific instance of collaboration that all three people mentioned. Taping out an ARM Cortex-A15 in TSMC 20nm technology using a Cadence tool flow.
Lip-Bu, Cadence’s CEO, went first. He had some numbers… Read More
The Coming Gamer Tablet from…… Apple!
After the introduction of the NEWiPAD, Apple has placed itself just two short steps away from dominating the computer market – including PCs. One step, which is widely reported, is a smaller iPAD with an 8” screen that aims for a $299 price point. Amazon will take the rest of the market under $299. The second step is purely speculation… Read More
More Growth in EDA
I love to read good news about growth in EDA especially when our industry has seen single-digit growth for several years now. What I read on March 8th from ClioSoft stated a 53% increase in bookings for 2011, now that’s what I call growth.
ClioSoft provides Hardware Configuration Management (HCM) software to EDA users typically… Read More
Virtual Prototype your SoC including FlexNoC
Designing larger than ever SoC, integrating multiple ARM’s Cortex-A15 and Cortex-A9 microprocessor cores as well as complexes IP functions like HDMI controller, DDR3 Memory controller, Ethernet, SATA or PCI Express controller are pushing designers to search for better price, performance and area tradeoffs and the SoC interconnect… Read More
Book Review – iWoz
I bought my first personal computer in 1979, it was a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I with just 16KB of RAM, a BW monitor and casette tape for storage. The reason that I chose the Radio Shack over the Apple II was that it cost less, so I was always interested in Apple products and the engineers behind them since the early days. It was pure delight… Read More
My Design Automation and Test in Europe Conference Agenda (DATE 2012)
As this blog is being posted I’m on my way to Dresden for the 2012 Design Automation and Test Conference. DATE used to bounce between Munich and Paris, I have attended many times but not in the past couple of years. No excuse really, just busy with other things. DATE 2012 Highlights in Dresden include E-Mobility and More-than-Moore… Read More
Power Issues for Chip and Board: webinar
Last month Brian Bailey at EDN moderated an interesting webinar about power issues. Unusually, it combined two different domains: doing things by modeling and actually taking measurements off real chips and boards. The two participants were Arvind Shanmugavel from the Apache subsidiary of Ansys, and Randy White from Tektronix.… Read More
Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding is Here