Last week GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Mentor Graphics presented at the Tech Design Forum on how they collaborated on a third generation DFM flow. When I reviewed the slides of the presentation it really struck me on how the old thinking in DRC (Design Rule Checking) of Pass/Fail for layout rules had been replaced with a score represented… Read More
What changes to expect in Verification IP landscape after Synopsys acquisition of nSys?
Even if nSys acquisition by Synopsys will not have a major impact on Synopsys’ balance sheet, it is a kind of earthquake in the Verification market landscape. After the Denali acquisition by Cadence in 2010, nSys was most probably the market leader in verification IP, if we look at the independent VIP providers (excluding Cadence).… Read More
HP Will Farm Out Server Business to Intel
In a Washington Post Column this past Sunday, Barry Ritholtz, A Wall St. Money Manager and who has a blog called the Big Picture, recounts the destruction that Apple has inflicted on a wide swath of technology companies (see And then there were none). He calls it “creative destruction writ large.” Ritholtz though is only accounting… Read More
I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…
The CEO panel at the 2nd GTC wasn’t especially enlightening. The theme was that going forward will require cooperation for success and everyone was really ready to cooperate.
The most interesting concept was Aart talking about moving from what he called “scale complexity” aka Moore’s law to what he … Read More
Global Technology Conference 2011
I went to the second Global Technology Conference yesterday. It started with a keynote by Ajit Manocha who is the CEO of about 2 months. I hadn’t realized until someone asked him during the press lunch that he is technically only the “acting” CEO. Actually, given his experience he might be the right person anyway,… Read More
Economic news not all bad for semiconductors
The economic news lately has been bleak. U.S. GDP grew at an anemic 0.4% in 1Q 2011 and 1.0% in 2Q 2011 – leading to increased concerns about a double-dip recession. High government debt levels in the U.S. and several European nations have contributed to volatile stock markets. The news does not seem to be any better for the semiconductor… Read More
Apple’s $399 Plan to Win Consumer Market in Summer 2012
The complete destruction of the consumer PC market in the US and Europe is well within Apple’s grasp and will begin to unfold next summer. There is nothing that Intel, Microsoft or the retail channels can do to hold back the tsunami that was first set in motion with the iPad last year and comes to completion with the introduction of one… Read More
Nanometer Circuit Verification Forum
Verifying circuits on advanced process nodes has always been difficult, and it’s no easier with today’s nanometer CMOS processes. There’s a great paradox in nanometer circuit design and verification. Designers achieve their greatest differentiation when they implement analog, mixed-signal, RF and custom … Read More
Semiconductor Yield @ 28nm HKMG!
Whether you use a gate-first or gate-last High-k Metal Gate implementation, yield will be your #1 concern at 28nm, which makes variation analysis and verification a big challenge. One of the consulting projects I have been working on with the foundries and top fabless semiconductor companies is High-Sigma Monte Carlo (HSMC) … Read More
Layout for analog/mixed-signal nanometer ICs
Analog has always been difficult, a bit of a black art persuading a digital process to create well-behaved analog circuits, capacitors, resistors and all the rest. In the distant past, we would solve this by putting the analog on a separate chip, often in a non-leading-edge process. But modern SoCs integrate large amounts of digital… Read More
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