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Did Qualcomm and Apple Attempt to Bribe TSMC?

Did Qualcomm and Apple Attempt to Bribe TSMC?
by Daniel Nenni on 08-30-2012 at 7:45 pm

It’s amazing how these rumors start and go viral. People are literally laughing here in Taiwan. I remember I wrote something that I thought was obviously satire and less than a week later someone repeated it back to me as fact since they “read it on the internet somewhere.”

According to Bloomberg: Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Qualcomm Inc.Read More


Smart mobile SoCs: Made in China

Smart mobile SoCs: Made in China
by Don Dingee on 08-29-2012 at 2:00 pm

One of the comments to previous installments of this series was that there isn’t much left for the merchant suppliers of smart mobile SoCs, considering Apple and Samsung have majority share and design their own parts. The theory is this makes it hard for many suppliers to continue investing at the resource levels needed to bring … Read More


Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide

Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide
by Daniel Payne on 08-29-2012 at 11:14 am

Last week I reviewed Chapter 1 in the new book: Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide, and today I finish up my review of Chapters 2 through 11. You can read the entire book chapter by chapter, or just jump directly to the chapters most related to your design role or project needs. With multiple authors I was impressed with the wide range of… Read More


Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide

Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide
by Daniel Payne on 08-29-2012 at 11:14 am

Last week I reviewed Chapter 1 in the new book: Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide, and today I finish up my review of Chapters 2 through 11. You can read the entire book chapter by chapter, or just jump directly to the chapters most related to your design role or project needs. With multiple authors I was impressed with the wide range ofRead More


TSMC 28nm Update Q3 2012!

TSMC 28nm Update Q3 2012!
by Daniel Nenni on 08-28-2012 at 7:30 pm

Reports out of Taiwan (I’m in Hsinchu this week) have TSMC more than doubling 28nm wafer output in Q3 2012 due to yield improvements and capacity increases while only spending $3.6B of the $8.5B forecasted CAPEX! Current estimates have TSMC 28nm capacity at 100,000 300mm wafers (+/- 10%) per month versus 25,000 wafers reported… Read More


Assertion Synthesis

Assertion Synthesis
by Paul McLellan on 08-28-2012 at 2:46 pm

In June, Atrenta acquired NextOp, the leader in assertion synthesis. So what is it?

Depending on who you ask, verification is a huge fraction, 60-80%, of the cost of an SoC design, so obviously any technology that can reduce the cost of verification has a major impact on the overall cost and schedule of a design. At a high-level, verification… Read More


Power, Signal, Thermal and EMI signoff

Power, Signal, Thermal and EMI signoff
by Paul McLellan on 08-28-2012 at 1:55 pm

Increasingly the challenge with SoCs, especially for mobile, is not getting the performance high enough but doing so in a power-efficient manner. Handheld devices running multiple apps need high-speed processors that consume extremely low levels of power both in operating and standby modes. In the server farm, the limit is … Read More


Apple’s Victory Will Re-Shuffle the Semi Industry

Apple’s Victory Will Re-Shuffle the Semi Industry
by Ed McKernan on 08-27-2012 at 2:00 pm

Apple’s legal victory over Samsung has been analyzed in thousands of articles and TWEETs since last Friday’s announcement and surely more will follow. Most of the commentary has focused on the first order impact to handset manufacturers. It is not entirely clear how it will all settle but there are sure to be secondary ramifications… Read More


A Brief History of FPGAs

A Brief History of FPGAs
by Daniel Nenni on 08-26-2012 at 7:30 pm

From the transistor to the integrated circuit to the ASIC, next comes programmable logic devices on the road to the mainstream fabless semiconductor industry. PLDS started in the early 1970’s from the likes of Motorola, Texas Instruments, and IBM but it wasn’t until Xilinx brought us the field programmable gate array (FPGA)… Read More


SpringSoft Laker vs Tanner EDA L-Edit

SpringSoft Laker vs Tanner EDA L-Edit
by Daniel Nenni on 08-26-2012 at 7:00 pm

Daniel Payne recently blogged some of the integration challenges facing Synopsys with their impending acquisition of SpringSoft. On my way back from San Diego last week I stopped by Tanner EDA to discuss an alternative tool flow for users who find themselves concerned about the Laker Custom Layout road map.

Design of the analog… Read More