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TSMC 2011 Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum Trip Report

TSMC 2011 Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum Trip Report
by Daniel Nenni on 10-23-2011 at 3:00 pm

The TSMC OIP conference was Monday and Tuesday of last week. You have probably NOT read about it since it was invitation only and press was not invited. Slides were not made available (except for Mentor), no photos or video were allowed, it was a very private affair. Given that, I won’t be able to go into great detail but I will give you… Read More


Intel’s Incredible Semiconductor Machine

Intel’s Incredible Semiconductor Machine
by Ed McKernan on 10-21-2011 at 8:15 am

It is hard not to be impressed by Intel’s stunning financial performance since the 2008 downturn. They are on track to post revenue of $55B this year or 50% higher than 2008 while nVidia and AMD will be flat to less than 10% better. More significantly, earnings will be 3X that of 2008. More significantly, in the past 12 months they have… Read More


Oct 27 – Hands-on Workshop with Calibre: DRC, LVS, DFM, xRC, ERC (Fremont, California)

Oct 27 – Hands-on Workshop with Calibre: DRC, LVS, DFM, xRC, ERC (Fremont, California)
by Daniel Payne on 10-20-2011 at 9:56 am

I’ve blogged about the Calibre family of IC design tools before:

Smart Fill replaced Dummy Fill Approach in a DFM Flow

DRC Wiki

Graphical DRC vs Text-based DRC

Getting Real time Calibre DRC Results with Custom IC Editing

Transistor-level Electrical Rule Checking

Who Needs a 3D Field Solver for IC Design?

Prevention is BetterRead More


AMS Design at AnSem

AMS Design at AnSem
by Daniel Payne on 10-19-2011 at 3:40 pm

AnSem has been in the AMS design business since 1998 and uses a variety of commercial EDA tools along with internally developed tools and scripts to automate the process of analog design and technology porting. Their IC designers have completed some 40 AMS projects in diverse areas like:

  • RF CMOS
    • LNA, VCO, Mixers
    • Synthesizers
    • Low-IF/Zero-IF
Read More

Apache on the Road

Apache on the Road
by Paul McLellan on 10-19-2011 at 2:01 pm

There are lots of places that Apache is going to popping up in the next few weeks.

Firstly, Andrew Yang will deliver the keynote on October 24th at the Electrical Performance of Electronic Packaging and Systems (EPEPS) in San Jose. He will be talking about “Chip-Package-System convergence: bridging multiple disciplings… Read More


SICAS capacity data loses TSMC and UMC

SICAS capacity data loses TSMC and UMC
by Bill Jewell on 10-19-2011 at 10:26 am

SICAS (Semiconductor Industry Capacity Statistics) has released its 2Q 2011 data with significant changes in membership. The data is available through the SIA at: SICASdata The SICAS membership list no longer includes the Taiwanese companies Nanya Technology, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (TSMC) or UnitedRead More


Apple is Giving Samsung Semiconductor A Splitting Headache

Apple is Giving Samsung Semiconductor A Splitting Headache
by Ed McKernan on 10-18-2011 at 5:00 pm

Vertical integration, as I have noted in previous blogs, is the way to domination and maximum profitability. That is unless someone else has beaten you to the punch with an even bettermodel. Apple is now executing a product and manufacturing supplier strategy that will force Samsung to lose lots of money and then ultimately split… Read More


USB 3.0 PHY Verification: how to manage AMS IP verification?

USB 3.0 PHY Verification: how to manage AMS IP verification?
by Eric Esteve on 10-18-2011 at 6:38 am

Very interesting question from Zahrein in this thread: “how to manage an embedded USB 3.0 PHY Verification”? To clearly position the problem, Zahrein need to run the RTL verification of a complete SoC integrating an USB 3.0 function, that is the Controller (digital) and the PHY (Analog Mixed Signal) embedded in the SoC. The question,… Read More


Mentor at the TSMC Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum

Mentor at the TSMC Open Innovation Platform Ecosystem Forum
by Daniel Payne on 10-17-2011 at 3:14 pm

EDA companies and foundries must closely collaborate in order to deliver IC tool flows that work without surprises at the 40nm and 28nm nodes.

Tomorrow in San Jose
you can attend this 4th annual event hosted by TSMC along with Mentor Graphics and other EDA and IP companies.

Here are some of the topics that will interest IC designers… Read More


EDA and ITC

EDA and ITC
by Daniel Payne on 10-17-2011 at 10:44 am

Every SOC that is designed must be tested and the premier conference for test is ITC, held last month in Anaheim, California.

I spoke with Robert Ruiz of Synopsys by phone on September 21st to get an update on what is new with EDA for test engineers this year. Robert and I first met back at Viewlogic when Sunrise was acquired in the 90’s.… Read More