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Apple’s Leveling of the Semiconductor Industry

Apple’s Leveling of the Semiconductor Industry
by Ed McKernan on 03-20-2012 at 2:03 pm

Holman Jenkins, the distinguished writer of business trends for the Wall St. Journal, recently penned an article entitled “The End of Apple’s Roach Motel?” (Personally, I think that since Apple is in California, he should have used Hotel California in his title), questioning the iPhone and iPAD maker of its ability to continue… Read More


A Chat with John Stabenow

A Chat with John Stabenow
by Daniel Payne on 03-20-2012 at 10:57 am

John Stabenow is the marketing group director at Cadence for the Virtuoso products and it has been awhile since we last talked, so we met for lunch on Friday at McMenamins in a city called West Linn, half-way between where we both live in Oregon. I had blogged about Interoperability at DAC 2010 and we had a public exchange at Chip Design… Read More


GLOBALFOUNDRIES Dresden Fab 1

GLOBALFOUNDRIES Dresden Fab 1
by Daniel Nenni on 03-18-2012 at 6:00 pm

Even though my Dresden trip was fraught with fail points it went off without a hitch. Flying over was easy, I connected through London Heathrow, flying back I connected through Frankfurt. The last time I connected through Frankfurt was right after the 9/11 attacks so I had a bit of deja vu. I was in Munich, Heathrow was closed, I was … Read More


EDPS Monterey

EDPS Monterey
by Paul McLellan on 03-17-2012 at 8:00 am

Every year in Monterey is a relatively small conference that looks at the design process, EDPS, the electronic design process symposium. I gave a keynote there a couple of years ago, but you don’t have to listen to me this time. The keynotes are from:

  • 1st day: Misha Buric, CTO of Altera, talking about SoC FPGAs and other things
Read More

Double Patterning and Then The End of Lithography

Double Patterning and Then The End of Lithography
by Paul McLellan on 03-15-2012 at 8:00 am

I went to a couple more sessions at the Common Platform Technology Forum today, on 20nm double patterning and whatever will we do at 14nm. Basically, this is the end of planar transistors and the end of optical lithography. One session was by IBM scientists about process and one by Michael White of Mentor about double patterning. … Read More


No Semiconductor Design Cloud Strategy? Really?

No Semiconductor Design Cloud Strategy? Really?
by Andrea Casotto on 03-14-2012 at 6:00 pm


I ask my customers about their cloud strategy and they all tell me “none”. The main reason is a red herring: “The legal department will never allow our IP outside our walls”.

Security issues on the cloud are largely solved, as proven by the fact that banks have no problem using external clouds. Behind the curtain, the real reason for… Read More


Common Platform: Onward to the Future

Common Platform: Onward to the Future
by Paul McLellan on 03-14-2012 at 3:03 pm

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

Timing Closure for ECOs in your SOC Design
by Daniel Payne on 03-14-2012 at 1:07 pm

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)

SICAS is dead (and WSTS isn’t feeling too good)
by Bill Jewell on 03-13-2012 at 8:16 pm

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

CDNLive: the Keynotes
by Paul McLellan on 03-13-2012 at 2:24 pm

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