That was said by the novelist Samuel Butler, but it is not a bad description of why you should spend the Sunday at DAC in one of the workshops that are taking place that day.
One workshop is on Design Automation for Beyond CMOS Technologies. Before getting to design automation, it is good to start with which technologies are potentially… Read More
Previously, I examined chip design in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was a nostalgic ride – thanks to all those who shared their stories. I enjoyed reading all of them. I drew two basic conclusions in the prior post:
[LIST=1]
It’s less than four weeks to go at DAC 2015 and the program is final now. So I started investigating new technologies, trends, methodologies, and tools that will be unveiled and discussed in this DAC. In the hindsight of the semiconductor industry over the last year, I see 14nm technologies in the realization stage and 10nm beckoning… Read More
Mentor’s annual user group meeting at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, CA is coming up on Tuesday, April 21[SUP]st[/SUP]. This complementary event provides a unique opportunity to share design techniques and exchange ideas with other users and experts in the design community. As you may have read I am the star of the show; moderating… Read More
This will be a year of change for the fabless semiconductor ecosystem, absolutely. Last year we were wondering how Samsung Mobile was going to compete with the China clones and other low end smart phones. We now know the answer to that question thanks to the Chipworks tear down of the Galaxy S6. SemiWiki IP expert Dr. Eric Esteve blogged… Read More
What is Skipper? Well, it seems it’s a penguin in the movie Madagascar. And one of Barbie’s sisters. Who knew? But for Semiwiki readers it’s an integrated chip finishing platform from ICScape. Skipper can read in full-chip layout extremely fast, examine it and manipulate it in various ways, and write it out again.… Read More
Chip design is largely about assembling pre-designed IP, either developed in other groups in the same company, or brought in from a 3rd party, or occasionally developed within the SoC design group itself. But that makes it sound like it is a bunch of blocks linked together with some interconnect, but of course another important … Read More
Yesterday Mentor announced their quarterly results. Since their financial year is not aligned with the calendar year, this was also the end of their fiscal 2015. The quarter was an all-time record with revenues of $439M and (non-GAAP) EPS of $1.09. The year was also an all-time record with revenues of $1.24B and EPS of $1.77. Half… Read More
One thing to point out is that the CLK of CLKDA are the initials of the founders, they are not focused on clocks! I’m sure you can guess what DA stands for, although it is also the last two letters of the fourth founder’s name.
They have been in existence since 2005, backed by Atlas Ventures and Morgenthaler. They are headquartered… Read More
Synopsys announced their results yesterday. Their 2014 already ended, this is the end of their fiscal first quarter. On the call were Aart, one of Synopsys’s two co-CEOs, the other being Chi-Foon Chan; and Trac Pham, the new CFO on his first earnings call.
Synopsys’s results were good. A quick look at the results. Revenue was $542M… Read More
