Power integrity: ground, and other fairy tales

Power integrity: ground, and other fairy tales
by Don Dingee on 03-31-2013 at 8:30 pm

Ground. It’s that little downward-pointing triangle that somehow works miracles on every schematic. It looks very simple until one has to tackle modern power distribution network (PDN) design on a board with high speed and high power draw components, and you soon discover ground is a complicated fairy tale with a lot of influences.… Read More


New ways for High Frequency Analysis of IC Layouts

New ways for High Frequency Analysis of IC Layouts
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-25-2013 at 5:30 pm

Amidst frequently changing requirements, time pressure and demand for high accuracy, it is imperative that EDA and design companies look at time consuming processes in the overall design flow and find alternatives without losing accuracy. High Frequency Analysis of IC designs is one such process which is traditionally based… Read More


Standard Cell Library Characterization

Standard Cell Library Characterization
by Daniel Payne on 03-13-2013 at 1:01 pm

Standard cell library characterization has been around for decades, Synopsys has been offering Liberty NCXand Cadence has Virtuoso Foundation IP Characterization. What’s new is that Mentor Graphics acquired the Z Circuit technology for library characterization and has integrated it with the Eldo Classic circuit … Read More


SHIELDing the Android GPU developer in C

SHIELDing the Android GPU developer in C
by Don Dingee on 02-18-2013 at 12:52 pm

Repeat after me: SoCs are paperweights if they can’t be programmed. Succeeding with a new part today means supporting a robust developer program to attract and engage as many creatives as possible. NVIDIA has teamed up with Mentor Graphics in just such an adventure. If you read just the press release, you may have missed the real … Read More


Mentor Shines at DVCon

Mentor Shines at DVCon
by Beth Martin on 02-18-2013 at 12:30 am

Mentor Graphics will be all over DVCon next week (February 25-28) at the DoubleTree hotel in San Jose.

In addition to attending all the panels, tutorials, posters, and the keynote, you can visit Mentor in booth 901 on the exhibit floor.
Here’s the lineup of Mentor-related events:… Read More


GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Mentor Develop Methods to Identify Critical Features in IC Designs

GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Mentor Develop Methods to Identify Critical Features in IC Designs
by glforte on 11-28-2012 at 3:00 pm

Since the beginning of the semiconductor industry, improving the rate of yield learning has been a critical factor in the success silicon manufacturing. Each fab has dedicated yield teams that look at the yield of wafers manufactured the previous day and attempt to find the root cause of any unexpected “excursions.” In earlier… Read More


Mentor and NXP Demonstrate that IJTAG Can Reduce Test Setup Time for Complex SoCs

Mentor and NXP Demonstrate that IJTAG Can Reduce Test Setup Time for Complex SoCs
by glforte on 11-15-2012 at 8:10 pm

The creation of test patterns for mixed signal IP has been, to a large extent, a manual effort. To improve the process used to test, access, and control embedded IP, a new IEEE P1687 standard is being defined by a broad coalition of IP vendors, IP users, major ATE companies, and all three major EDA vendors. This new standard, also called… Read More


SoC emulation syncs up with SuperSpeed USB

SoC emulation syncs up with SuperSpeed USB
by Don Dingee on 10-25-2012 at 9:00 pm

They say what adds value is to take something difficult and make it look simple. USB looks so simple when it is done right, but designers know it can be one of the more tempermental features in an SoC, especially in the latest SuperSpeed incarnation.… Read More


Mentor Graphics Update at TSMC 2012 OIP

Mentor Graphics Update at TSMC 2012 OIP
by Daniel Payne on 09-26-2012 at 10:45 am

What
In just 20 days you can get an update on four Mentor Graphics tools as used in the TSMC Open Innovation Platform (OIP). Many EDA and IP companies will be presenting along with Mentor, so it should be informative for fabless design companies in Silicon Valley doing business with TSMC.
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