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ARM Chips Away at Intel’s Server Business!

ARM Chips Away at Intel’s Server Business!
by Ed McKernan on 11-06-2011 at 7:40 am


When Intel entered the server market in the 1990s with their Pentium Processor and follow on Xeons beginning in 1998, they focused on the simple enterprise applications. At the same time they laid the groundwork for what will turn out to be a multi-decade, long war to wrest control from all mainframes and workstations. The announcements… Read More


PC Growth Latches on to the Parabolic Curve of Emerging Markets

PC Growth Latches on to the Parabolic Curve of Emerging Markets
by Ed McKernan on 11-04-2011 at 7:56 am

One of the interesting tidbits of information to come from Intel’s October earnings call was that Brazil, a country of nearly 200M people, has moved up to the #3 position in terms of PC unit sales. This was a shock to most people and as usual brushed aside by those not familiar with the happenings of the emerging markets (i.e. the countries… Read More


Arteris vs Sonics battle…Let’s talk NoC architecture

Arteris vs Sonics battle…Let’s talk NoC architecture
by Eric Esteve on 11-04-2011 at 6:23 am

The text of this very first article about Arteris had disapeared from Semiwiki, for an absolutely unknowed reason…If you have missed it, this is a pretty useful introduction to NoC concept, as well as to the legal battle between Arteris and Sonics:

The Network on Chip is a pretty recent concept. Let’s try to understand how … Read More


Learning Verilog for ASIC and FPGA Design

Learning Verilog for ASIC and FPGA Design
by Daniel Payne on 11-02-2011 at 11:17 am

Verilog History
Prabhu Goel founded Gateway Design Automation and Phil Moorby wrote the Verilog language back in 1984. In 1989 Cadence acquired Gateway and Verilog grew into a de-facto HDL standard. I first met Prabu at Wang Labs in 1982 where I designed a rather untestable custom chip named the WL-2001 (yes, it was named to honor… Read More


High-efficiency PVT and Monte Carlo analysis in the TSMC AMS Reference Flow for optimal yield in memory, analog and digital design!

High-efficiency PVT and Monte Carlo analysis in the TSMC AMS Reference Flow for optimal yield in memory, analog and digital design!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-01-2011 at 9:00 am

Hello Daniel,
I am very interested on the articles on the PVT simulation, I have worked in that area in the past when I worked in process technology development and spice modeling and I also started a company called Device modeling technology (DMT) which built a Spice model library of discrete components, such as Bipolar/MOS /POWER
Read More


Meg Whitman Should Buy AMD and Take HP Back To Its Roots

Meg Whitman Should Buy AMD and Take HP Back To Its Roots
by Ed McKernan on 10-31-2011 at 11:16 am

Back in the 2008 financial Crises, GM was finally brought to its knees and had to face a radical makeover. They asked for a bailout from the government that allowed the unions to swap out lower compensation for equity, something no union would do unless the alternative was to shutter the doors. The bondholders and the shareholders… Read More


EDA Company Selected as One of the Fastest Growing Companies in North America by Deloitte’s 2011 Technology Fast 500™!?!?!?!

EDA Company Selected as One of the Fastest Growing Companies in North America by Deloitte’s 2011 Technology Fast 500™!?!?!?!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-31-2011 at 11:07 am

Wow! We always hear semiconductor companies complain about the lack of innovation amongst the EDA leaders. Placing high on the Deloitte 500 list shows that innovation is alive and well in EDA and it IS possible to have a meaningful impact regardless of your overall size. It is worth noting that there are very few EDA companies that… Read More


TSMC ASIC versus IBM ASIC!

TSMC ASIC versus IBM ASIC!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-30-2011 at 3:00 pm

Lunch with Jim Lai, President of Global Unichip(GUC), was the highlight of my week, I had a very nice crab cake salad. As you may have read, GUC announced itself as the “Flexible ASIC Leader” taking direct aim at the traditional ASIC market led by the likes of IBM, ST Micro, TI, Renesas, and Samsung. This will be like “shooting fish inRead More


What’s New with Semiconductor Test and Failure Analysis at Mentor?

What’s New with Semiconductor Test and Failure Analysis at Mentor?
by Daniel Payne on 10-28-2011 at 6:03 pm

ISTFA
Silicon Valley is a great location for trade shows and technical conferences, so if you have an interest in test and failure analysis then don’t miss out on the 37th annual International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis. This year ISTFA will be held from Sunday, November 13th thru Thursday, November 17th … Read More


Xilinx and Altera’s Summer At The Beach

Xilinx and Altera’s Summer At The Beach
by Ed McKernan on 10-28-2011 at 11:01 am

The “old saw” is “To Sell in May and Go Away.” It’s a Maxim that particularly applies to semiconductor stocks as they typically drop from a post April earnings peak through the summer doldrums to a late September nadir only to be revived in the prelude of October earnings. It has happened again this year, although the path taken by the… Read More