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
I sat down this afternoon with Peter Theunis, the CTO of Methodics. Conveniently their office is about a 15 minute walk from where I live so we could chat face to face.
Peter started programming when he was 8 and his first “product” was a weather system for orchards where sensors in the orchards would send information … Read More
Cadence announced their Q4 and 2014 results yesterday. They are the only one of the big 3 EDA companies whose fiscal year is the calendar year so Synopsys and Mentor will not be joining them in announcing them this week.
I won’t go into the numbers in detail, you can find them all easily enough. But it is a pity that statements like… Read More
TCAD is a somewhat specialized area since not that many people design semiconductor processes compared to the number who design chips. Bit without TCAD there would be no chips. One area where the two domains intersect is that of SEE, where neutrons (mainly) can cause a flop or a memory bit to change. Since we live on a radioactive planet… Read More
As we left an exciting year 2014 which is poised to record 7+ % increase in semiconductor revenue (~ $338 B) compared to 2013 (~ $315 B) and entered into another promising year 2015 for semiconductors, I looked back over the year bygone and collected inferences from some of the major important events which clearly convey how 2015 can… Read More
It is the holiday season so time to get together with your friends and colleagues in EDA, IP and semiconductor at the third annual event raising money for Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) (www.casaofsantacruz.org). This is the third event that Heart of Technology has worked with CASA. CASA has local organizations and … Read More
