The press release about ONFI 3.0 support was launched by Cadence at the beginning of this year. It was a good illustration of Denali, then Cadence, long term commitment to Nand Flash Controller IP support. The ONFI 3 specification simplifies the design of high-performance computing platforms, such as solid state drives and enterprise… Read More
Analog Automation – Needs Design Perspective
Recently I was researching the keynote speeches of isQED (International Society for Quality Electronic Design) Symposium 2012 and saw the very first, great presentation, “Taming the Challenges in Advanced Node Design” by Tom Beckley, Sr. VP at Cadence. I know Tom very well as I have worked with him and I admire his knowledge, authority… Read More
EDPS: 3D ICs, part I
The second day (more like a half-day) of EDPS was devoted to 3D ICs. There was a lot of information, too much to summarize in a few hundred words. The keynote was by Riko Radojcic of Qualcomm, who has been a sort of one-man-band attempting to drive the EDA and manufacturing industries towards 3D. Of course it helps if you don’t … Read More
The best graphics chip is the one seen the most
If I say “graphics chip”, most techies will say NVIDIA or AMD. But in the new post-PC world , neither of these players holds the key to the future. One that does is a little company making 43 cents on every latest version iPad and iPhone. Another is designing their own approach. Should you care what graphics is in your phone?… Read More
MEMS and IC Co-design
This morning I attended a webinar about MEMS and IC co-design from a company called SoftMEMS along with Tanner EDA. I learned that you can co-design MEMS and IC either in a bottom-up or top-down methodology, and that this particular flow has import/export options to fit in with your mechanical simulation tools (Ansys, Comsol, Open… Read More
Oasys Gets Funding from Intel and Xilinx
Oasys announced that it closed its series B funding round with investments from Intel Capital and Xilinx. The fact that any EDA company has closed a funding round is newsworthy these days; companies running out of cash and closing the doors seems to be a more common story.
Oasys has been relatively quiet, which some people have taken… Read More
EDA Industry Talks about Smart Phones and Tablets, Yet Their Own Web Sites are Not Mobile-friendly
As a blogger I write weekly about the EDA industry and certainly our industry enables products like Smart Phones and Tablets to even exist, however if we really believed in these mobile devices then what should our web sites look like on a mobile device?
It’s a simple question, yet I first must define mobile-friendly before… Read More
EDPS: SoC FPGAs
Mike Hutton of Altera spends most of his time thinking about a couple of process generations out. So a lot of what he worries about is not so much the fine-grained architecture of what they put on silicon, but rather how the user is going to get their system implemented. 2014 is predicted to be the year in which over half of all FPGAs will… Read More
EDPS: Parallel EDA
EDPS was last Thursday and Friday in Monterey. I think that this is a conference that more people would benefit from attending. Unlike some other conferences, it is almost entirely focused around user problems rather than doing a deep dive into things of limited interest. Most of the presentations are more like survey papers and… Read More
Google Glasses = Darknet!
Google Project Glasses and Augmented Reality will be the tragic end to the world as we once knew it. As we become more and more dependent on mobile internet devices we become less and less independent in life. Consider how much of your critical personal and professional information (digital capital) is stored via the internet and… Read More
More Headwinds – CHIPS Act Chop? – Chip Equip Re-Shore? Orders Canceled & Fab Delay