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Low Power Webinar Series

Low Power Webinar Series
by Paul McLellan on 07-08-2011 at 4:57 pm

At DAC 2011 in San Diego, Apache gave many product presentations. Of course not everyone could make DAC or could make all the presentations in which they were interested. So from mid-July until mid-August these presentations will be given as webinars. Details, and links for registration, are here on the Apache website.

The seminars… Read More


Once Upon A Time… ASIC designers developed IC for Supercomputer in the 80’s

Once Upon A Time… ASIC designers developed IC for Supercomputer in the 80’s
by Eric Esteve on 07-07-2011 at 10:41 am

During last week-end, I had the good surprise to meet with one of my oldest friend, Eric, who remind me the old time, when we were working together as ASIC designers for… a Supercomputer project.

In France, in a French company (Thomson CSF) active in the military segment and being able to spend which was at that time a fortune ($25M) Read More


TSMC Financial Status Plus OIP Update!

TSMC Financial Status Plus OIP Update!
by Daniel Nenni on 07-05-2011 at 8:00 am

Interesting notes from my most recent Taiwan trip: Taiwan unemployment is at a record low. Scooters once again fill the streets of Hsinchu! TSMC will be passing out record bonuses to a record amount of people. TSMC Fab expansions are ahead of schedule. The new Fab 15 in Taichung went up amazingly fast with equipment moving in later… Read More


Two More Transistor-Level Companies at DAC

Two More Transistor-Level Companies at DAC
by Daniel Payne on 07-02-2011 at 8:38 pm

In my rush on Wednesday at DAC I had almost over-looked the last two companies I talked with: Invarian and AnaGlobe. These last two I had hand-written notes on paper, so I just got to the bottom of my inbox tonight to write up the final trip reports.

Invarian
Jens Andersen and Vladimir Schellbach gave me an overview of tools that perform… Read More


Apache Design Automation acquired by Ansys

Apache Design Automation acquired by Ansys
by Daniel Payne on 06-30-2011 at 2:52 pm

We all knew that Apache had filed for an IPO earlier and were just waiting for the timing and price to be revealed. Rumors have been circulating about an acquisition and today we know that the rumors were true asAnsys paid $310 million in cash for Apache.

Ansys stock has surged some 35% over the past twelve months:

Products
This acquisition… Read More


Cadence to launch PCIe gen-3 (8 GT/s) IP and VIP: fruit of Denali acquisition

Cadence to launch PCIe gen-3 (8 GT/s) IP and VIP: fruit of Denali acquisition
by Eric Esteve on 06-28-2011 at 10:59 am

The recent announcement from Cadence, officially launching the PCI Express 3.0 Controller IP, as well as the associated Verification IP (VIP), made of Compliance Management System (CMS) which provides interactive, graphical analysis of coverage results, and PureSuite which provides the PCIe associated test cases, clearlyRead More


SOC Realization

SOC Realization
by Paul McLellan on 06-27-2011 at 5:28 pm

There are some very interesting comments to the last entry on SoC Realization and how more and more chips are actually assembled out of IP. There was clearly a lot of discussion in this area at DAC, although most people (Atrenta being an exception) don’t use the term SoC Realization, presumably because it was originated by … Read More


ARM and Mentor Team Up on Test

ARM and Mentor Team Up on Test
by Daniel Payne on 06-27-2011 at 2:31 pm

Introduction
Before DAC I met with Stephen Pateras, Ph.D. at Mentor Graphics, he is the Product Marketing Director in the Silicon Test Solutions group. Stephen has been at Mentor for two years and was part of the LogicVision acquisition. He was in early at LogicVision and went through their IPO, before that he was at IBM in the mainframe… Read More


TSMC Versus Intel: The Race to Semiconductors in 3D!

TSMC Versus Intel: The Race to Semiconductors in 3D!
by Daniel Nenni on 06-26-2011 at 4:00 pm

While Intel is doing victory laps in the race to a 3D transistor (FinFet) @ 22nm, TSMC is in production with 3D IC technology. A 3D IC is a chip in which two or more layers of active electronic components are integrated both vertically and horizontally into a single circuit. The question is which 3D race is more important to the semiconductor… Read More


HDMI vs DisplayPort?… DiiVA is the answer from China!

HDMI vs DisplayPort?… DiiVA is the answer from China!
by Eric Esteve on 06-26-2011 at 9:40 am

During the early 2000’s, when OEM starting to question the use of LVDS to interface with display devices, two standards has emerged: High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) and DisplayPort. HDMI has been developed by silicon Image, surfing on the success of Digital Video Interface (DVI), and was strongly supportedRead More