Uniquely Understanding Challenges of Chip Design and Verification

Uniquely Understanding Challenges of Chip Design and Verification
by Daniel Nenni on 11-14-2023 at 6:00 am

Jean Marie Brunet (1)

Jean-Marie Brunet is Vice President and General Manager of Siemens Hardware-Assisted Verification. He and I spoke recently about how different his hardware group is from the rest of the software-centric EDA product space and why a hardware-oriented EDA vendor like Siemens fully understands the challenges of the chip design… Read More


US giant swoops for British chipmaker months after Chinese sale blocked on national security grounds

US giant swoops for British chipmaker months after Chinese sale blocked on national security grounds
by Daniel Nenni on 05-21-2023 at 6:00 pm

UK US CHina Semiconductor Battle

According to UK based The Telegraph Pulsic is a chip maker and Cadence is a swooping US giant.  I guess you have to stretch the truth to get those precious clicks these days. Even so this is a strategic acquisition for Cadence.

Pulsic is a 20+ year old EDA software company that offers chip planning and implementation software for custom… Read More


Solutions for Defense Electronics Supply Chain Challenges

Solutions for Defense Electronics Supply Chain Challenges
by Rahul Razdan on 12-08-2022 at 6:00 am

figure1 7

“The amateurs discuss tactics: the professionals discuss logistics.”

— Napoleon

Logistics is even more important today than it was in the early 1800’s. Further, the effectiveness of Defense systems is increasingly driven by sophisticated electronics. As the recent Ukraine conflict reveals, weapons such as precision munitions,… Read More


The Corellium Experience Moves to EDA

The Corellium Experience Moves to EDA
by Lauro Rizzatti on 10-25-2022 at 6:00 am

Corellium SemiWIki

Bill Neifert invited me to join him on Zoom recently to talk about his move to Corellium, a company known within the DevSecOps (development, security, operations) market. Developers and security groups use its virtualization technology to build, test, and secure mobile and IoT apps, firmware, and hardware.

Not knowing much … Read More


WEBINAR: Efficient and User-Friendly Analog IP Migration

WEBINAR: Efficient and User-Friendly Analog IP Migration
by Daniel Nenni on 11-25-2021 at 9:32 pm

There have always been good reasons to port designs to new foundries or processes. These reasons have included reusing IP in new projects, moving an entire design to a smaller node to improve PPA, or second sourcing manufacturing.

While there can be many potential business motivations for any of the above, in today’s environment… Read More


Podcast EP21: Leading Edge Analog Design

Podcast EP21: Leading Edge Analog Design
by Daniel Nenni on 05-21-2021 at 10:00 am

Dan is joined by Mark Williams, founder and CEO of Pulsic. The application of shape-based routing to automate analog design is explored. Pulsic’s revolutionary new automated analog layout system, Animate is also discussed. With this system, multiple, high quality, fully routed layouts can be created in minutes from … Read More


EDA Appears to Have COVID Immunity – ESD Alliance Reports Strong Q2 2020

EDA Appears to Have COVID Immunity – ESD Alliance Reports Strong Q2 2020
by Daniel Nenni on 10-05-2020 at 10:00 am

EDA Appears to Have COVID Immunity – ESD Alliance Reports Strong Q2 2020

The ESD Alliance tracks revenue growth for a large number of EDA companies. Their recent report paints a positive picture in a landscape dotted with challenges and not-so-good news. The report cites 12.6% overall revenue growth for Q2 2020 vs. Q2 2019. Furthermore, the overall most recent four quarter revenue average has increased… Read More


SkillCAD Layout Automation Suite has Over 120 Commands Backed by 60 Customers

SkillCAD Layout Automation Suite has Over 120 Commands Backed by 60 Customers
by Tom Simon on 09-29-2020 at 10:00 am

SkillCAD Layout Automation Suite

Cadence Virtuoso is by far the most popular layout tool for IC design. This is especially true at advanced process nodes. In my opinion one of the key reasons for this is its built-in extension language, SKILL. SKILL is a powerful tool to add time saving and customized functionality to the Virtuoso layout editor. For analog and custom… Read More


IP Integration Challenges of Complex SoC Platforms

IP Integration Challenges of Complex SoC Platforms
by Daniel Nenni on 05-21-2020 at 5:57 am

The explosion of AI and pervasive intelligence has created an exponential demand for increasing compute power, best addressed using GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) and FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays). This is accomplished by providing a HW platform that runs computationally intensive machine learning algorithms… Read More