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Learning About MEMS

Learning About MEMS
by Daniel Payne on 12-12-2011 at 6:34 pm

My automobile has an air bag system that uses a MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) sensor to tell it when to deploy, and I’ve read headlines talking about MEMS over the years so I decided it was about time to learn more by attending a Webinar on Wednesday, December 14th at 8AM Pacific Time.

The EDA company hosting the Webinar… Read More


View from the top: Ajoy Bose

View from the top: Ajoy Bose
by Paul McLellan on 12-12-2011 at 4:13 pm

I sat down yesterday with Dr. Ajoy Bose, CEO of Atrenta, to get his view of the future of EDA – looking through a high-power “spyglass” of sorts. I first met Ajoy when he was at Software & Technologies. I was then the VP of Engineering for Compass Design Automation and we were considering off-shoring some development. We eventually… Read More


Intel Proves Last Year’s Conventional Wisdom Wrong

Intel Proves Last Year’s Conventional Wisdom Wrong
by Ed McKernan on 12-11-2011 at 7:00 pm

Back in the 1990’s, Richard Branson, the legendary Entrepreneur and investor was asked how to become a millionaire, and he allegedly responded, “There’s really nothing to it. Start as a billionaire and then buy an airline.” I think the same principle can be applied to a large part of the Semiconductor… Read More


Synopsys Eats Magma: What Really Happened with Winners and Losers!

Synopsys Eats Magma: What Really Happened with Winners and Losers!
by Daniel Nenni on 12-10-2011 at 6:00 pm

Conspiracy theories abound! The inside story of the Synopsys (SNPS) acquisition of Magma (LAVA) brings us back to the 1990’s tech boom with shady investment bankers and pump/dump schemes. After scanning my memory banks and digging around Silicon Valley for skeletons with a backhoe here is what I found out:

The Commission… Read More


Atrenta’s users. Survey says….

Atrenta’s users. Survey says….
by Paul McLellan on 12-09-2011 at 7:32 pm

Atrenta did an online survey of their users. Of course Atrenta’s users are not necessarily completely representative of the whole marketplace so it is unclear how the results would generalize for the bigger picture, your mileage may vary. About half the people were design engineers, a quarter CAD engineers and the rest … Read More


Challenges in 3D-IC and 2½D Design

Challenges in 3D-IC and 2½D Design
by Paul McLellan on 12-09-2011 at 5:18 pm

3D IC design and what has come to be known as 2½D IC design, with active die on a silicon interposer, require new approaches to verification since the through silicon vias (TSVs) and the fact that several different semiconductor processes may be involved create a new set of design challenges

The power delivery network is a challenge… Read More


Low power techniques

Low power techniques
by Paul McLellan on 12-08-2011 at 5:49 pm

There was recently a forum discussion about the best low power techniques. Not surprisingly we didn’t come up with a new technique nobody had ever thought of but it was an interesting discussion.

First there are the techniques that by now have become standard. If anyone wants more details on these then two good resources are… Read More


Driving in the bus lane

Driving in the bus lane
by Paul McLellan on 12-08-2011 at 1:16 pm

Modern microprocessor and memory designs often have hundreds of datapaths that traverse the width of the chip, many of them very wide (over one thousand signals). To meet signal timing and slope targets for these buses, designers must insert repeater cells to improve the speed of the signal. Until now, the operations associated… Read More


Improving Analog/Mixed Signal Circuit Reliability at Advanced Nodes

Improving Analog/Mixed Signal Circuit Reliability at Advanced Nodes
by glforte on 12-07-2011 at 3:52 pm

Preventing electrical circuit failure is a growing concern for IC designers today. Certain types of failures such as electrostatic discharge (ESD) events, have well established best practices and design rules that circuit designers should be following. Other issues have emerged more recently, such as how to check circuits… Read More