Every so often I come across a new company in EDA or one of its neighboring domains, new to me anyway, and new to SemiWiki. One such company is RunTime Design Automation (RTDA). They provide a suite of tools for managing server farms (or internal clouds which seems to be the trendy buzzword du jour). Running a few EDA scripts on a few servers… Read More
3D Transistor for the Common Man!
The 1999 IDM paper Sub 50-nm FinFET: PMOSstarted the 3D transistor ball rolling, then in May of 2011 Intel announceda production version of a 3D transistor (TriGate) technology at 22nm. Intel is the leader in semiconductor process technologies so you can be sure that others will follow. Intel has a nice “History of the Transistor… Read More
2012 semiconductor market could decline by 1% or more
The world semiconductor market grew a slight 0.4% in 2011, according to WSTS. In early 2011, expectations were for growth in the 6% to 10% range. Various natural and man-made disasters lead to weaker than expected growth. The March 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan disrupted semiconductor and electronics production. Floods… Read More
Synopsys MIPI M-PHY in 28nm introduction with Arteris
MIPI set of specifications (supported by dedicated controllers) are completed by a PHY function, the D-PHY or the M-PHY function. The D-PHY was the first to be released, and most of the MIPI functions supported in a smartphone we are using today probably still use a D-PHY, but the latest MIPI specifications have been developed based… Read More
Huawei and Intel Redrawing the New Mobile Playing Field
This time is differentis a book that was released just months before the financial crises in 2008 describing hundreds of historical cases where smart people ended up making disastrous decisions over the span of 800 years that led to government defaults, banking panics etc… In the semiconductor industry, we also tend to think this… Read More
HSPICE Users Talking about Their Circuit Simulation Experience, Part 2
Continued from < Part 1 <… Read More
HSPICE Users Talking about Their Circuit Simulation Experience
HSPICE users gathered in January 2012 at the HSPICE SIG(Special Interest Group) to talk about their experiences using this circuit simulator for a variety of IC and signal integrity issues. I wasn’t able to attend in person however I did watch the video and wanted to summarize what I heard:… Read More
Does 14nm magically put Intel back on the lead smartphone lap?
I’ve often wanted to publish a book with nothing but photos of police cars, so that people wouldn’t have to slow down and gawk at them when they have someone pulled over on the side of the freeway. Intel roadmaps seem to have the same effect on people. No matter what is on them, even if there’s nothing really new, they… Read More
Yalta is Dead! Synopsys offensive in VIP restart the cold war
Last year, you could claim (like I did in this blog) that Cadence was making money with large VIP port-folio, when Synopsys was managing sales of a large Design IP port-folio (thanks to a successful acquisition strategy in the 2000’s). But the latest acquisitions made by Synopsys of VIP centric companies like nSys or ExpertIO should… Read More
ISSCC 2012: Silicon Systems for Sustainability!
What can we do for Earth’s sustainability? Besides sorting our garbage and recycling our lawn clippings? Sustainability must be the paramount theme for the future of human society! Semiconductors for a better life! Well, according to my kids, if you take away their smart phones there is no life!… Read More
Bluetooth 6.0 Channel Sounding is Here