About 35 years ago the first commercial SPICE circuit simulators emerged and they were quickly put to work helping circuit designers predict the timing and power of 6um NMOS designs. Then we had to limit our circuit simulations to just hundreds of transistors and interconnect elements to fit into the RAM and complete simulation… Read More
A new term has entered the vernacular of electronic design engineering — pathfinding. The complexity of the functionality to be integrated and the myriad of chip, package, and board technologies available make the implementation decision a daunting task. Pathfinding refers to the method by which the design space of technology… Read More
With the industry abuzz about the Apple purchase of a Maxim Integrated fab as a potential R&D facility for MEMS design, it begs the question: is creating a MEMS device that easy?
MEMS technology is approaching the same fork in the road where digital design encountered LSI four decades earlier. … Read More
I was kind of shocked when the service manager at our local VW dealership told me that one of the wires in the ignition system of my wife’s New Beetle had started to overheat, melting the insulation and becoming a safety hazard. Why didn’t a fuze just blow, protecting the wiring from overheating? We decided to quickly … Read More
Walking into the Mentor Graphics booth at ARM TechCon, I was greeted by my friends Warren Kurisu and Shay Benchorin. It was good to see them both again. They were poised in front of a table with a Samsung tablet and a small Wi-Fi-ish box, next to a large Samsung printer. The demonstration was similar to a lobby check-in process, where… Read More
When I first moved to Oregon in 1978 the largest industry was forestry, but then the endangered Spotted Owl was found and that put an end to many forestry companies and decimated the economy of many rural cities. Strangely enough it turns out that the Spotted Owl was found in great numbers across multiple states, so it never should’ve… Read More
Back in 2002, the Southwest DFT Conference was born and experts on design for test (DFT) and test got together to share ideas and talk to people in this industry that were trying to solve test challenges of the day.… Read More
When most people talk about the IoT, it is usually all about wearables-this and low-power-that – because everyone is chasing the next huge consumer post-mobile device market. Mobile devices have provided the model. The smartphone is the on-ramp to the IoT for most consumers, with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and LTE, and maybe a dozen or … Read More
Rarely does a month go by without acquisitions in the fabless semiconductor ecosystem. Not surprisingly one of the most read pages on SemiWiki is the EDA Merger and Acquisitions Wiki with more than fifty seven thousand views. It really is a nice family tree, one which we (Daniel Payne) are diligent on keeping current. One of the most… Read More
A funny thing happened at the Design Automation Conference last June in San Francisco. I was browsing the Kaufman award winner mug shots in the EDAC booth and noticed that Wally Rhines was NOT a winner. You can see them HERE. Immediately in disbelief I said to myself: Self, how can this be? Joe Costello, Aart de Geus, and some other guys… Read More
