The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is the premier electronics gadget exposition, a window into what we will be spending our hard earned money on next Christmas. Personally, I go to CES every year to try and guess what new innovative technology will drive future semiconductor design and manufacturing. Last year I bet… Read More




#49 Design Automation Conference Deadlines
Note that there are several DAC deadlines coming up in the next couple of weeks.
The deadline for user track submissions is January 17th (next Tuesday). Submission requires an extended abstract. See here for details.
The deadline for DAC workshops is January 19th (next Thursday). A proposal is required. See here for details.
The… Read More
Thanks to Linkedin members: 24 “Like” given to “Interface Protocols, USB3, HDMI, MIPI… the winner and losers in 2011”
Just because it seems that the likes given to: Interface Protocols, USB3, HDMI, MIPI… the winner and losers in 2011 were numerous, I decided to count it.
Twenty-four likes received, in 11 Linkedin groups (see below), that’s good! Very goos! Thanks to all of you… And most probably thanks to IPNESTfor the quality of the… Read More
The Innovator’s Dilemma Dagger Aimed at AMD and nVidia’s Heart
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
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 (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 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.
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
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
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
TSMC Describes Technology Innovation Beyond A14