Understanding and Designing For Variation in GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm

Understanding and Designing For Variation in GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm
by Daniel Nenni on 06-03-2012 at 8:30 pm

On Wednesday there is a User Track Poster Session that examines the design impact of process variation in GLOBALFOUNDRIES 28nm technology. For those of you who are wondering what process variation looks like at 20nm take this 28nm example and multiply it by one hundred (slight exaggeration, maybe).

Variation effects have a significant… Read More


Beyond 28nm: New Frontiers and Innovations in Design For Manufacturability at the Limits of the Scaling Roadmap

Beyond 28nm: New Frontiers and Innovations in Design For Manufacturability at the Limits of the Scaling Roadmap
by Daniel Nenni on 05-22-2012 at 9:00 pm

The introduction of 28nm high-volume production for IC semiconductor devices will usher the era of “extreme low-k1” manufacturing, i.e. the unprecedented situation in the long history of the silicon technology roadmap, where computationally intensive (and EDA-driven) Design-Technology Co-Optimization will become the… Read More


Piper Jaffray Chip Analyst Spanks Intel!

Piper Jaffray Chip Analyst Spanks Intel!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-15-2012 at 7:30 pm

This just in from Tech Trader Daily, quoting Piper Jaffraychip analyst Gus Richard:

The whole issue for Qualcomm, based on Richard’s conversations with industry types, is that the company has started making its “MSM8960″ chip with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (
TSM) only two to three quarters after TSM introducedRead More


Apple Games Qualcomm’s 28nm Supply for Labor Day iPhone 5 Launch

Apple Games Qualcomm’s 28nm Supply for Labor Day iPhone 5 Launch
by Ed McKernan on 05-09-2012 at 11:17 pm

You can see a lot just by looking – as Yogi Berra was quoted as saying. The past two weeks we have seen quite a bit that adds intrigue to the true nature of Qualcomm’s 28nm product shortage and how the effects will ripple through the mobile industry for the second half of 2012. Samsung’s bold announcement of their Galaxy S III smartphones… Read More


Sagantec Update: More EDA Consolidation!

Sagantec Update: More EDA Consolidation!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-08-2012 at 7:00 pm

Adding sophisticated 2D dynamic compaction technology to address 20nm and 14nm challenges. Santa Clara, California – May 3 ,2012 – Sagantec today announced that it has acquired Dutch startup NP-Komplete Technologies BV (Eindhoven, The Netherlands) for its physical design compaction and migration solutions based on a sophisticatedRead More


Next Generation Transistors

Next Generation Transistors
by Paul McLellan on 04-27-2012 at 1:54 pm

We have all heard that planar transistors have run out of steam. There are two ways forward. The one that has garnered all the attention is Intel’s trigate which is their name for FinFET. The other is using thin film SoI which ST is doing. TSMC and Global seem to be going the FinFET way too, although at a more leisurely pace. But … Read More


Broadcom announces an HFC

Broadcom announces an HFC
by Paul McLellan on 04-24-2012 at 8:00 pm

For a long time Cisco had a very high end product whose official internal name during its years of development was HFR, which stood for Huge F***ing Router (the marketing department insisted it stood for ‘fast’). Eventually it got given a product number, CRS-1, but not before I’d read an article about it in the… Read More


Qualcomm Meets Jerry Sanders at 28nm

Qualcomm Meets Jerry Sanders at 28nm
by Ed McKernan on 04-19-2012 at 8:26 pm

First the good news: 4G LTE design in activity is off the charts as OEMs building smartphones, tablets and Ultrabooks are buying into the capability for product rollouts that will occur starting in September. Now the bad news: there’s not enough to go around until probably well into 2013. For a Company sitting on over $26B in cash,… Read More