DesignCon is coming up and the panel discussions look very interesting this year. The one panel session that I recommend most is called, “Analog and Mixed-Signal Design and Verification” which is moderated by Brian Bailey, one of my former Mentor Graphics buddies and fellow Oregonian.… Read More
Acquiring Great Power
“Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Making good architectural decisions for controlling power consumption and ensuring power integrity requires a good analysis of the current requirements and how they vary. Low power designs, and today there really aren’t… Read More
EDA Tool Flow at MoSys Plus Design Data Management
I’ve read about MoSys over the years and had the chance this week to interview Nani Subraminian, Engineering Manager about the types of EDA tools that they use and how design data management has been deployed to keep the design process organized. My background includes both DRAM and SRAM design, so I’ve been curious… Read More
Intel Aims for the Upper, Upper Decks
Since the introduction of Apple’s iPhone and then the follow on iPAD, it has been Wall Streets frame of reference that Intel would be playing defense as the PC market slid into oblivion and therefore a Terminal Value should be placed on the company. Intel’s Q4 2011 earnings conference call provided a nice jolt to the analysts as Paul… Read More
The Qualcomm PUT and The FABulous Year Ahead
Humor can arise in surprising ways and yet still be disguised to many. As I was researching Qualcomm the other day, I came upon the transcript of their last quarterly earnings and I had to laugh. In the midst of last summer’s European crises, when the Club Med (Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal) Sovereign Debt was trying to be rolled… Read More
What is a Hierarchical SPICE Circuit Simulator?
Hierarchy is used in IC designs at many abstraction levels to help describe a design in a compact format:
- Mask Data
- IC Layout
- Schematic Netlists
- Gate level netlists
- RTL netlists
But the question and focus for this blog is, “What is a hierarchical SPICE Circuit Simulator?”… Read More
NoC for faster SoC integration
The need for Network-on-Chip (NoC) has appeared at the time where chip makers realized that they could really integrate a complete system on a single die to build a System-on-Chip (SoC). I was in charge of the development of a large IC, integrating different type of functions (Analog and Digital) to support advanced TV application.… Read More
Apple 4S nearly catches up to Android, perhaps
Apple’s iPhone did well in Q4 according to Neilsen who polled recent buyers of smartphones. Of people who had purchased a smartphone in the previous 3 months (roughly Q4) 44.5% chose an iPhone (up from 25.1% in October, roughly Q3). But Android retained the lead with a 46.9% share, down from 61.6% in October. How many phones… Read More
Low-power IC design in Switzerland
My wife and I have traveled to Switzerland on vacation and marveled at the natural beauty of the mountains, efficient train system, tasty chocolate, and wonderful foods. I only wished that our American dollar bought more in Swiss currency than it did. Recently I discovered a high-tech IC design company called Microdul that designs… Read More
NFC, Why is this a big deal?
NFCis all over the news. Payments from your phone, yeah! I was wondering why this is a big deal, and why it has taken so long to gain momentum. I was issued a RFID enabled employee badge (JavaCard) 10 years ago while working at Sun. RFID is now so prevalent that Walmart attaches RFID tags to clothes. I spent an hour wading around the internet… Read More
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