Supporting the Customer Is Everyone’s Job

Supporting the Customer Is Everyone’s Job
by Amit Varde on 05-19-2013 at 10:40 am

EDA software is quite different from off-the-shelf software. In most cases, customer requirements are unique and depend on the proprietary and complex design process, environments and standards developed and/or evolved by semiconductor design teams over a number of years. EDA software ends up being heavily customized to … Read More


CEO Interview: Jason Xing of ICScape Inc.

CEO Interview: Jason Xing of ICScape Inc.
by Randy Smith on 05-19-2013 at 12:00 am

I recently had the opportunity to interview Jason Xing, Ph.D., CEO and President of ICScape, Inc. Below is a subset of the nearly two hour long interview.

How did you first become involved in EDA?
My EDA career started in the mid-90s when I started working on my PhD thesis at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. My thesis… Read More


#50DAC: Winning in Monte Carlo!

#50DAC: Winning in Monte Carlo!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-18-2013 at 4:00 pm

One of the places you will be able to find me at the Design Automation Conference (DAC) is on the speaker panel for a Monday Tutorial – Winning in Monte Carlo: Managing Simulations Under Variability and Reliability. Having worked closely with TSMC, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Solido Design Automation, and some of the top fabless semiconductor… Read More


SoC Optimization Using FPGA Prototyping

SoC Optimization Using FPGA Prototyping
by Daniel Payne on 05-18-2013 at 11:00 am

As an engineer I learn new concepts best by seeing a demonstration, in this case it was a demo of how to optimize SoC performance by using an ASIC prototyping debug process. SoC designers that use FPGAs to prototype their new ASIC often encounter debug issues, like:

  • Limited observability of internal nets required for debug, maybe
Read More

Atrenta CEO on RTL Signoff

Atrenta CEO on RTL Signoff
by Daniel Nenni on 05-16-2013 at 9:00 pm

Most EDA companies sell tools into the main chip design and implementation flow such as simulation, synthesis, place & route, custom design and mask data prep. Atrenta is different. Nothing the company sells is in this main design flow. Instead, Atrenta focuses on pre-synthesis design analysis and optimization. Everything… Read More


AMD Reduces Power by 20%

AMD Reduces Power by 20%
by Paul McLellan on 05-16-2013 at 4:12 pm

Steve Kommrusch of AMD wrote a white paper with Calypto on how AMD reduced power by 20% on the Jaguar SoC using Calypto’s PowerPro. Dan Nenni blogged about it on SemiWiki back in February here. And now, drumroll, Steve will present the story live and in person at DAC, on Monday June 3rd at 3pm and on Wednesday June 5th at 11am. This… Read More


Cadence Technical Sessions @ #50DAC (Free Food!)

Cadence Technical Sessions @ #50DAC (Free Food!)
by Daniel Nenni on 05-16-2013 at 10:00 am


Cadence is a DAC anchor, everyone will visit their booth, so lets look at their technical sessions and put our agendas together. Lets start with the breakfast/lunch sessions because Cadence usually puts out quite a spread, we all gotta eat and free food tastes even better:

Has “Timing Signoff Innovation” Become an Oxymoron? WhatRead More


One-Stop Shop for Complete MIPI IP Solution

One-Stop Shop for Complete MIPI IP Solution
by Pawan Fangaria on 05-15-2013 at 8:00 pm

As we know mobile industry is one of the fastest growing in the electronics arena, and it has led to the emergence of several standards of interfaces between processors, devices, storage, camera, keyboard and so on. The interfaces can involve hardware as well as software and can be complex. The standards are still evolving, often… Read More


Carbon CEO on Advanceed ARM based SoC Design!

Carbon CEO on Advanceed ARM based SoC Design!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-15-2013 at 10:00 am

Carbon Design drives a lot of traffic to SemiWiki. Actually, it’s ARM driving traffic to the Carbon landing page since Carbon and ARM work closely together. When we blog about designing with ARM IP droves of people click over. Seriously, DROVES of people. Rick Lucier has deep EDA experience and has led Carbon as CEO for the … Read More


Methodics CEO on Managing Design Quality!

Methodics CEO on Managing Design Quality!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-14-2013 at 8:05 pm

Methodics is new to SemiWiki and I have to tell you I’m really enjoying working with them. Their office is in a great location and the inovation spirit runs strong. Simon Butler is an interesting guy. He first started in EDA with HLD (acquired by Cadence) and was a founder at Sabio Labs (acquired by Magma). In between those startups… Read More