SiC TargetedApplication Arm 2 (1)

Synopsys Virtualizer

Synopsys Virtualizer
by Paul McLellan on 07-19-2011 at 8:00 am

As you probably know, Synopsys last year acquired VaST and CoWare and a couple of years early had acquired Virtio. All three companies primarily competed in the virtual platform market. In addition, Synopsys is the #2 IP company (behind ARM) and has a wide range of tools for SoC design. So the interesting question is how would they… Read More


SpringSoft Community Conferences

SpringSoft Community Conferences
by Paul McLellan on 07-18-2011 at 5:31 pm

During the next 6 months or so, SpringSoft will be running a dozen community conferences. These are open not just to users but to anyone interested in SpringSoft’s technology.

There will be 3 conferences in US in October in Irvine, Austin and San Jose. For more details as they become available check here. There will be three… Read More


Variation Analysis

Variation Analysis
by Paul McLellan on 07-18-2011 at 1:33 pm

I like to say that “you can’t ignore the physics any more” to point out that we have to worry about lots of physical effects that we never needed to consider. But “you can’t ignore the statistics any more” would be another good slogan. In the design world we like to pretend that the world is pass/fail. But manufacturing is actually a statistical… Read More


Richard Goering does Q&A with ClioSoft CEO

Richard Goering does Q&A with ClioSoft CEO
by Daniel Payne on 07-18-2011 at 11:05 am

Richard Goering is well-known from his editorial days at EE Times (going back some 25 years), now at Cadence he blogs at least once a week on EDA topics that touch Cadence tools.

Before DAC he talked with Srinath Anantharaman about how Cadence tools work together with ClioSoft tools to keep IC Design Data Management Simple.

Through… Read More


Intel Briefing: Tri-Gate Technology and Atom SoC

Intel Briefing: Tri-Gate Technology and Atom SoC
by Daniel Nenni on 07-17-2011 at 3:00 pm

Sorry to disappoint but my 2 hours at the Intel RNB was a very positive experience. It is much more fun writing negative things about industry leaders because I enjoy the resulting hate mail and personal attacks, but the candor and transparency of the Intel guys won me over. They even asked ME questions which was a bit telling. I also… Read More


Webinar: IP integration methodology

Webinar: IP integration methodology
by Paul McLellan on 07-17-2011 at 12:24 pm

The next Apache webinar is coming up on 21st July at 11am Pacific time on “IP integration methodology”.

This webinar will be conducted by Arvind Shanmugavel, Director Applications Engineering at Apache Design Solutions. Mr. Shanmugavel has been with Apache since 2007, supporting the RedHawk and Totem product … Read More


First low-power webinar: Ultra-low-power Methodology

First low-power webinar: Ultra-low-power Methodology
by Paul McLellan on 07-13-2011 at 12:10 pm

The first of the low power webinars is coming up on July 19th at 11am Pacific time. The webinar will be conducted by Preeti Gupta, Sr. Technical Marketing Manager at Apache Design Solutions. Preeti has 10 years of experience in the exciting world of CMOS power. She has a Masters in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of technology,… Read More


And it’s Intel at 22nm but wait, Samsung slips ahead by 2nm…

And it’s Intel at 22nm but wait, Samsung slips ahead by 2nm…
by Paul McLellan on 07-12-2011 at 12:46 pm

Another announcement of interest, given all the discussion of Intel’s 22nm process around here, is that Samsung (along with ARM, Cadence and Synopsys) announced that they have taped out a 20nm ARM test-chip (using a Synopsys/Cadence flow).

An interesting wrinkle is that at 32nm and 28nm they used a gate-first process but… Read More


Cadence aquires Azuro

Cadence aquires Azuro
by Paul McLellan on 07-12-2011 at 12:20 pm

Cadence this morning announced that it has acquired Azuro. Azuro has become a leader in building the clock trees for high performance SoCs. A good rule of thumb is that the clock consumes 30% of the power in an SoC so optimizing it is really important. Terms were not disclosed.

The clock trees involve clock gating which can reduce clock… Read More


On-chip supercomputers, AMBA 4, Coore’s law

On-chip supercomputers, AMBA 4, Coore’s law
by Paul McLellan on 07-11-2011 at 12:45 pm

At DAC I talked with Mike Dimelow of ARM about the latest upcoming revision to the AMBA bus standards, AMBA 4. The standard gets an upgrade about every 5 years. The original ARM in 1992 ran at 10MIPS with a 20MHz clock. The first AMBA bus was a standard way to link the processor to memories (through the ARM system bus ASB) and to peripherals… Read More