Until recently, ICs at bleeding edge nodes like 7nm technology from foundries like TSMC were mostly targeted for high-performance-computing (HPC) and mobile applications or possibly high radix switches that needed the increased performance of advanced nodes. The momentum of Moore’s law and Moore-than-Moore saw foundries… Read More
Frequent Semiwiki readers are familiar with the importance of close collaboration between the foundries and EDA tool developers, to provide the crucial features required by new process nodes. Perhaps the best illustration of the significance of this collaboration is the technical evolution of layout parasitic extraction.… Read More
I’m developing a taste for user-group meetings. In my (fairly) recently assumed role as a member of the media, I’m only allowed into the keynotes, but from what I have seen, vendors work hard to make these fresh and compelling each year through big-bang product updates and industry/academic leaders talking about their work in bleeding-edge… Read More
I talked with Paul Cunningham (VP front-end digital R&D) at CDNLive recently to get a Cadence perspective on digital design trends. He sees needs from traditional semiconductor companies evolving as usual, with disruption here and there from consolidation. But on the system side there is explosion in demand – for wearables,… Read More
It requires lateral thinking in bringing new innovation into conventional solutions to age-old hard problems. While the core logic design has evolved adding multiple functionalities onto a chip, now called SoC, the structural composition of DFT (Design for Testability) has remained more or less same based on XOR-based compression… Read More
I really enjoy ARM Techcon when it rolls around every year because it has such a wide range of topics and exhibits. You can find maker gadgets, IoT information, small boards for industrial control, software development kits, semiconductor IP vendors as well as the big EDA players and foundries. This year after perusing the exhibit… Read More
On Tuesday Cadence made a big announcement about their new physical implementation offering, Innovus, during the keynote address at the CDNLive event in Silicon Valley. Cadence CEO Lip-Bu Tan alluded to it during his kick off talk, and next up Anirudh Devgan, Senior Vice President, Digital & Signoff Group, filled in more … Read More
Yesterday was the first day of CDNLive. There were three keynotes. The first was by Lip-Bu Tan, Cadence’s CEO (and the Chairman of Walden International that he will be the first to remind you). The most interesting tidbit was that Cadence now has over 1000 people working on IP and that it represents 11% of their revenue. Then… Read More
