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The Innovator’s Dilemma Dagger Aimed at AMD and nVidia’s Heart

The Innovator’s Dilemma Dagger Aimed at AMD and nVidia’s Heart
by Ed McKernan on 01-13-2012 at 1:42 pm

There is one semiconductor company that for the last 3 years has outperformed ARM and more than doubled in stock price relative to Apple. They are everywhere but barely known to most. The success of this company in the coming year though could result in the leveling of AMD and nVidia as they try to adjust to the economics of the mobile… Read More


Needham growth conference

Needham growth conference
by Paul McLellan on 01-13-2012 at 6:00 am

One of the fun things when a company gets big but is still private, like Atrenta, is that you start to get invited to events like the Needham Growth Conference that took place earlier this week in New York. When I ran Compass Design Automation, which at the time was about $55M in revenue, I remember going to a couple of these events. At … Read More


EDAC reports Q3

EDAC reports Q3
by Paul McLellan on 01-12-2012 at 7:49 pm

EDAC (EDA consortium) market statistics service announced the data for Q3 of 2011. Revenue increased 18.1% (versus 2010) to $1543.9 million. Sequentially (versus Q2) revenue increase 7.4%. Annualized, that puts EDA at over $6B for, I belive, the first time ever. Wally Rhines, who is EDAC chair (and CEO of Mentor) commented that… Read More


Advanced Memory Cell Characterization with Calibre xACT 3D

Advanced Memory Cell Characterization with Calibre xACT 3D
by SStalnaker on 01-12-2012 at 7:18 pm

Advanced process technologies for manufacturing computer chips enable more functionality, higher performance, and low power through smaller sizes. Memory bits on a chip are predicted to double every two years to keep up with the demand for increased performance.

To meet these new requirements for performance and power, memory… Read More


Memory Controller IP, battle field where Cadence and Synopsys are really fighting face to face. Today let’s have a look at Cadence’s strategy.

Memory Controller IP, battle field where Cadence and Synopsys are really fighting face to face. Today let’s have a look at Cadence’s strategy.
by Eric Esteve on 01-12-2012 at 9:45 am

I have shared with you last year some strategic information released by Cadence in April about their IP strategy, more specifically about the launch of the DDR4 Controller IP. And try to understand Cadence strategy about Interface IP in general (USB, PCIe, SATA, DDRn, HDMI, MIPI…) and how Cadence is positioned in respect with their… Read More


Speeding SoC timing closure

Speeding SoC timing closure
by Paul McLellan on 01-12-2012 at 1:42 am

As chips have become larger, one of the more challenging steps is full-chip signoff. Lots of other steps in the design process can work on just a part of the problem, but by definition full-chip signoff has to work on the full chip. But it is not just that chips have got larger, the number of corners that need to be validated has also exploded.… Read More


Medfield: ARM twisting

Medfield: ARM twisting
by Paul McLellan on 01-11-2012 at 2:53 pm

One of the most significant announcements at the consumer electronics show (CES) this week was Intel’s Medfield, an Atom-based smartphone SoC. The SoC itself is unremarkable, perhaps a little better than ARM Cortex-based SoCs in some areas, worse in others. The reason it is significant is that Motorola (soon to be Google,… Read More


Imera Virtual Fabric

Imera Virtual Fabric
by Paul McLellan on 01-10-2012 at 6:00 am

Virtual fabric sounds like something that would be good for making the emperor’s new clothes. I talked today to Les Spruiell of Imera to find out what it really is.

Anyone who has worked as either a designer or as an EDA engineer has had the problem of a customer who has a problem but can’t send you the design since it is (a)… Read More


Samsung’s Regrettable Moment and the Coming of 3D Tick Tock!

Samsung’s Regrettable Moment and the Coming of 3D Tick Tock!
by Ed McKernan on 01-10-2012 at 12:35 am

The might have beens. The shoulda’s, coulda’s, woulda’s are what launches a thousand Harvard Business School Case Studies that are meant to prepare a generation of business leaders on how to make decisions that impact the future directions of companies. Right before the 2008 financial crises (September … Read More


Kindle Touch – My Experience

Kindle Touch – My Experience
by Daniel Payne on 01-09-2012 at 11:08 am

Mostly I blog about EDA software however the end objective of IC design is to produce an electronic system like the Kindle Touch, a popular e-book reader from Amazon introduced in late 2011.

Tear Down
This particular model has the following components (Source: Tech Republic):

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