At the recent TSMC OIP symposium, a collaborative presentation by Synopsys and Xilinx highlighted the importance of incorporating the local FinFET device self-heating temperature increase on the acceleration of device reliability mechanisms.… Read More
Every designer relies upon an underlying “compact” device model for circuit simulations – these models are the lifeblood of the IC industry. Designers may not be aware that there is an organization that qualifies models – the Compact Model Coalition – which operates under the umbrella of the Si2 Consortium: http://www.si2.org/cmc_index.php… Read More
In the first part of this article I wrote about four types of costs which must be considered when an IP goes through design differentiation, customization, characterization, and selection and evaluation for acquisition. In this part of the article, I will discuss about the other five types of costs which must be considered to enhance… Read More
In more than 30 years of semiconductors, we have seen many technology-induced disruptions in our ecosystem, be it healthcare, consumer, mobile, aerospace, or any other field for that matter. To name a few are portable healthcare devices at much lower prices, video conferencing over internet that reduced the need of physical … Read More
Today it is TSMC’s OIP Ecosystem Innovation forum. This is an annual event but is also a semi-annual update on TSMC’s processes, investment, volume ramps and more. TSMC have changed the rules for the conference this year: they have published all the presentations by their partners/customers. Tom Quan of TSMC told… Read More
Before we left for our 5 week trip to Europe I decided that I would need a real laptop computer on the road. I knew it would be a near necessity for booking hotels and making train reservations. Also, I would need to write emails and maybe even pay some online bills. I already have an iPad but really wanted to be able to run all my applications… Read More
The TSMC quarterly conference call was last week and of course it stirred up quite a bit of controversy. Let me share with you my experience, observations, and opinions and maybe together we can come up with an accurate prediction for 2016. First let’s take a look at 20nm and what people now call the “Apple effect.”
Correct… Read More
There have been rumors around for months (even on Semiwiki here) but today it is official. GlobalFoundries announced 22FDX which is a 22nm FD-SOI platform. GF announced that they had licensed FD-SOI from STMicroelectronics a couple of years ago and then…nothing. I just assumed it was a marketing deal that would be driven… Read More
My first exposure to automating IC layout was back in the 1980’s at Intel where I coded a layout compiler to auto-generate about 6% of a graphics processor chip. The need to use automation for IC layout continues today, and with the advent of FinFET technology there are some new challenges like layout gradient effects that … Read More
One of the most interesting presentations that I went to was the last presentation at the Synopsys Custom Lunch (no, the lunch wasn’t custom, we all got the same, but the presentations were about custom design). Since the last presentation was by Synopsys themselves and not by a customer, it wouldn’t seem promising that it could … Read More
