Exciting times for the semiconductor industry! Last week Intel announced a billion dollar fund to build a foundry ecosystem and today Intel announced they are acquiring foundry Tower Semiconductor for $5.6 billion dollars, WOW! Some people doubted Intel’s commitment to the foundry market this time. I think we can now put that… Read More
Using the right tool for the job can be extremely important. Well, maybe not in the case of the famed chef Martin Yan who is notorious for using just one knife—a razor sharp wide blade cleaver that doubles as a spatula—for preparing anything and everything he cooks. For the rest of us, though, the right tools can make all the difference.… Read More
The old phrase that the cure is worse than the disease is apropos when discussing MBIST for large SOCs where running many MBIST tests in parallel can exceed power distribution network (PDN) capabilities. Memory Built-In Self-Test (MBIST) usually runs automatically during power on events. Due to the desire to speed up test and … Read More
As the oldest and largest EDA conference, the Design Automation Conference (DAC) brings the best minds together to present, discuss, showcase and debate the latest and greatest advances in EDA. It accomplishes this in the form of technical papers, talks, company booths, product pavilions and panel discussions.
A key aspect … Read More
The arrival of fall seems to typically raise the number of conferences hosted by semiconductor ecosystem companies. The conferences may go by different names. But whether called a forum, summit, conference, or by some other creative name, the purpose is the same. It is to bring together technologists and business people together… Read More
Designing an ASIC is little bit like trying to hit the bullseye, in the dark. I’ve spent several decades in the ASIC business I can tell you this is what it’s like from first-hand experience. When the design team sets out to build a custom chip to make their product better, faster, more robust, etc. (pick the words you like), there is … Read More
The concept of platform-based design has been around a long time. I can recall Nokia’s early cell phone products used the strategy very effectively. They were able to turn out new phones quickly by leveraging their existing chip design as a baseline on which to add features. This is commonplace today but was innovative at that time.… Read More
I first remember blogging about EDA in the cloud starting back in 2011, so what’s changed in the last 10 years you may ask? In 2011, it was basically a handful of EDA point tools running batch mode in the cloud, and you were on your own to integrate those into a coherent flow, so expect help from the CAD and IT departments for sure.… Read More
The above title refers to a webinar that was hosted by Altair on April 28th. Chip design in the cloud is not a new idea. So, what is the big deal with the above title. Sometimes titles don’t reveal the full story. Annapurna Labs happens to be an Amazon company. It used to be an independent semiconductor company that was acquired by Amazon… Read More
The 3rd Party Semiconductor Intellectual Property (IP) market has seen great innovation in the products it offers to System-on-a-Chip (SoC) designers over the last ten years. If any market segment in the semiconductor industry typifies the intense evolutionary pressures that the entire electronics market has undergone, … Read More
