An Important Next Step for Portable Stimulus Adoption

An Important Next Step for Portable Stimulus Adoption
by Daniel Nenni on 07-02-2019 at 5:00 am

Portable stimulus has been a hot topic for a couple of years in the EDA and semiconductor industries. Many observers see this approach as the next major advance in verification beyond the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM), and the next step higher in abstraction for specifying verification intent. The basic idea is to … Read More


The Complexity of Block-Level Placement @ 56thDAC

The Complexity of Block-Level Placement @ 56thDAC
by Tom Dillinger on 06-11-2019 at 10:00 am

The recent Design Automation Conference in Las Vegas was an indication of how the electronics industry is evolving.  In its formative years, DAC was focused on the fundamental algorithms emerging from academic research and industrial R&D, that enabled the continuation of the Moore’s Law complexity curve.  (Indeed, the… Read More


Cadence on 5G Intelligent System Design #56thDAC

Cadence on 5G Intelligent System Design #56thDAC
by Daniel Nenni on 06-10-2019 at 10:00 am

As much as I love all EDA vendors I must say Cadence did the best DAC this year. Great booth, great location, excellent content, and of course a great party. The 5G presentation in the Cadence booth by Ian Dennison was of great interest to me as I am still trying to wrap my head around this whole 5G thing. I was able to meet with Ian privately… Read More


Design IP in 2018: Synopsys and Cadence Increase Market Share…

Design IP in 2018: Synopsys and Cadence Increase Market Share…
by Eric Esteve on 05-07-2019 at 7:00 am

…but ARM, Imagination, MIPS or Ceva have declined and lose market share. Semiconductor design IP market is still doing good in 2018, with 6% growth year over year. It’s half the growth rate seen in 2017, 2016 and 2015 and the growth decline is imputable to bad results from ARM, the market leader, but also from Imagination (#4), MIPS… Read More


EDA Update 2019

EDA Update 2019
by Daniel Nenni on 04-26-2019 at 12:00 pm

Over the last six years EDA has experienced yet another disruption not unlike the Synopsys acquisition of Avant! in 2001 which positioned Synopsys for the EDA lead they still enjoy today. Or the hiring of famed venture capitalist Lip-Bu Tan in 2009 to be the CEO of struggling EDA pioneer Cadence Design Systems. Under Lip-Bu’s… Read More


The ESD Alliance Welcomes You to an Evening with Jim Hogan and Paul Cunningham

The ESD Alliance Welcomes You to an Evening with Jim Hogan and Paul Cunningham
by Bob Smith on 04-05-2019 at 7:00 am

An informal “Fireside Chat” like no other featuring Jim Hogan, managing partner of Vista Ventures, LLC., and Paul Cunningham, Cadence’s corporate vice president and general manager of the system verification group, is in the works for Wednesday, April 10.

Hosted by the ESD Alliance, a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, at … Read More


My Thoughts on Cadence in the Cloud

My Thoughts on Cadence in the Cloud
by Daniel Nenni on 04-03-2019 at 12:00 pm

The cloud is a highly popular term that a lot of people don’t fully understand. If you are one of those people please read on as I will share my experience, observations, and opinions. Even if you are a cloud aficionado you may want to catch up on what’s new with EDA cloud services so again read on.

When we first started SemiWiki 9 years … Read More


Solving the EM Solver Problem

Solving the EM Solver Problem
by Tom Simon on 04-03-2019 at 7:00 am

The need for full wave EM solvers has been creeping into digital design for some time. Higher operating frequencies – like those found in 112G links, lower noise margins – caused by multi level signaling such as in PAM-4, and increasing design complexity – as seen in RDL structures, interposers, advanced connector… Read More


A Smarter Way to Do Multi-Board PCB Systems

A Smarter Way to Do Multi-Board PCB Systems
by Daniel Payne on 03-23-2019 at 2:15 pm

Many electronic product ideas start out as sketches on the back of a napkin, then migrate over to diagrams drawn in Visio or PowerPoint, finally entered into EDA-specific tools. With that methodology there’s a big disconnect between the diagrams drawn with a purely graphical tool and the EDA tools, because there’s… Read More


Intelligent Electronic Design Exploration with Large System Modeling and Analysis

Intelligent Electronic Design Exploration with Large System Modeling and Analysis
by Camille Kokozaki on 03-07-2019 at 7:00 am

At the recent DesignCon 2019 in Santa Clara, I attended a couple of sessions where Cadence and their research partners provided some insight on machine learning/AI and on large system design analysis; with the first one focused on real-world cloud & machine learning/AI deployment for hardware design and the second one focused… Read More