What Do You Do When You Are Not Designing?

What Do You Do When You Are Not Designing?
by Paul McLellan on 04-30-2014 at 10:07 pm

DAC is coming up in a month (OMG less than 4 weeks and we are so not ready I hear a hundred marketing people cry out). That gives you four weeks (and a couple of days) to tell Mentor what you do in your spare time that you are passionate about (spare time, I hear a hundred engineers cry out, what is that?) and you could win $300.

For DAC, Mentor… Read More


RTL Designers Can Win a GoPro Camera at DAC

RTL Designers Can Win a GoPro Camera at DAC
by Daniel Payne on 04-30-2014 at 10:05 am

DACis just 33 days away and who wouldn’t want a cool GoPro camerato play with? Your manager will certainly want you to first check out what’s new at DAC if your job involves getting to RTL signoff on time and within budget. The creative folks at Atrenta have figured out how to attract us with the offer of winning a GoPro camera,… Read More


IC/Package/Board – Power, Noise and Reliability from ANSYS (Apache DA) at DAC

IC/Package/Board – Power, Noise and Reliability from ANSYS (Apache DA) at DAC
by Daniel Payne on 04-30-2014 at 10:04 am

ANSYS acquired Apache Design Automation back in June 2011and three years later the name “Apache” is being subdued in favor of using just ANSYS. One thing that I noticed right away was a DACfocus on having actual ANSYS customers talk about their hands-on experience using the EDA tools. The following seven customers… Read More


International Workshop on Logic and Synthesis

International Workshop on Logic and Synthesis
by Paul McLellan on 04-20-2014 at 12:54 am

There are always a number of other events that are colocated with DAC. One this year is the 23rd International Workshop on Logic and Synthesis (IWLS) that is held the weekend before DAC on May 30th and June 1st. Strictly speaking it is not colocated since it is in the Galleria Park Hotel on Sutter Street a few blocks away whereas DAC itself… Read More


Xilinx Showcases Worlds First ‘High Performance’ Analogue FPGA

Xilinx Showcases Worlds First ‘High Performance’ Analogue FPGA
by Luke Miller on 04-16-2014 at 7:00 am

Last February Xilinx presented a prototype device at the 2014 IEEE international Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC, titled “A Heterogeneous 3D-IC Consisting of Two 28nm FPGA Die and 32 Reconfigurable High-Performance Data Converters” and click here to get a copy of the paper. Let me just share the intro my dear reader… … Read More


Xilinx and Red Pitaya is Tootie Fruity

Xilinx and Red Pitaya is Tootie Fruity
by Luke Miller on 04-03-2014 at 12:00 pm

Xilinx’s Zynq SoC is the best selling FPGA of all time. Zynq has brought together, at first an uncomfortable but necessary mix of software and hardware engineers. Two very different but special kind of people. Me, I’m of the hardware persuasion. Zynq is the start of the much needed open FPGA community. This will drive down the price… Read More


DAC: Automotive, IP and Security

DAC: Automotive, IP and Security
by Paul McLellan on 03-21-2014 at 5:18 pm

DAC is in the first week of June in San Francisco as I’m sure you already know if you are reading this. Historically DAC has focused on electronic design automation (EDA) and embedded software and systems (ESS). This year there are three new areas: automotive, Intellectual Property (IP) and security.

Automotive
Ever increasing… Read More


How to Optimize Analog IPs for High-end SoCs?

How to Optimize Analog IPs for High-end SoCs?
by Pawan Fangaria on 01-07-2014 at 12:00 pm

Gone are the days when analog design had its sweet space on a single chip. However, it’s the main driver in this new electronic world which is geared by Internet-of-Things, wireless, mobile, remote control and so on. How does an electronic device sense a touch by human, motion, temperature, sound etc.? It’s the analog circuitry … Read More


New at DAC: IP, Automotive, Security

New at DAC: IP, Automotive, Security
by Paul McLellan on 10-18-2013 at 12:09 pm

The deadline for panel sessions, workshops, tutorials and co-located conferences for DAC 2014 is October 21st. That’s next Monday!

DAC 2014 will not only focus on EDA and embedded systems and software but
also include:

  • design methods for automotive systems and software
  • hardware and embedded systems security
  • IP (semiconductor
Read More

Rapid Yield Optimization at 22nm Through Virtual Fab

Rapid Yield Optimization at 22nm Through Virtual Fab
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-09-2013 at 10:00 am

Remember? During DAC2013 I talked about a new kind of innovation: A Virtual Fabrication Platform, SEMulator3D, developed by COVENTOR. Now, to my pleasant surprise, there is something to report on the proven results from this platform. IBM, in association with COVENTOR, has successfully implemented a 3D Virtual Fabrication… Read More