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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


Smartphones in the BRICs

Smartphones in the BRICs
by Paul McLellan on 06-24-2011 at 2:45 pm

The latest edition of GSA Forum has an article by Aveek Sarkar of Apache on system design for emerging market needs. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) type countries are characterized by a small rich segment, a large and growing middle class and a large poor segment. One big trend is that smart phone use is expanding very fast.… Read More


OpenAccess

OpenAccess
by Paul McLellan on 06-21-2011 at 1:11 pm

Probably everyone knows that openAccess is a layout database. It was originally developed at Cadence (called Genesis) but has since been transferred to Si2. Strictly speaking, openAccess is actually an API and the database is a reference implementation. The code is licensed under a sort of halfway to open-source: you can use … Read More


Can Your Router Handle 28 nm?

Can Your Router Handle 28 nm?
by Beth Martin on 06-20-2011 at 7:11 pm

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With the adoption of the 32/28 nm process node, some significant new challenges in digital routing arise—including complex design rule checking (DRC) and design for manufacturing (DFM) rules, increasing rule counts, very large (1 billion transistor) designs. To meet quality, time-to-market, and cost targets, design teams… Read More


Semiconductor IP State of the Union

Semiconductor IP State of the Union
by Daniel Nenni on 06-19-2011 at 10:15 am

After the mega IP acquisitions last year by Cadence (Denali) and Synopsys (Virage) a lot of people are wondering what is next for the commercial Semiconductor IP market. Let me offer my opinion as a person who works closely with foundries and their top customers and the opinion of Dr. Eric Esteve, an expert on interface IP.

The commercial… Read More


Circuit Simulation and IC Layout update from Mentor at DAC

Circuit Simulation and IC Layout update from Mentor at DAC
by Daniel Payne on 06-17-2011 at 7:06 pm

Intro
On Monday evening I talked with Linda Fosler, Director of marketing for the DSM Division at Mentor about what’s new at DAC this year in circuit simulation and IC layout tools.

Notes
IC Station – old name for IC layout tools

Eldo – Eldo Classic- Cell characterization
– ST is the early customer and teaching customer,… Read More


DRC tool guns for Calibre at DAC

DRC tool guns for Calibre at DAC
by Daniel Payne on 06-17-2011 at 6:48 pm

Intro
Across the aisle from the Mentor booth at DAC sat a DRC tool competitor to Calibre. I received an update from Randy Smith of Polyteda on Wednesday afternoon, my last EDA vendor of the week.

Ravi Ravikumar, Randy Smith

Notes
Randy Smith – CEO (February 2011) [former founder is gone]- 1979 at HP developing internal tools
–… Read More