Temperature – The Fourth Aspect to Look at in SoC Design

Temperature – The Fourth Aspect to Look at in SoC Design
by Pawan Fangaria on 07-25-2014 at 2:00 pm

In my career in semiconductor industry, I can recall, in the beginning there was emphasis on design completion with automation as fast as possible. The primary considerations were area and speed of completion of a semiconductor design. Today, with unprecedented increase in multiple functions on the same chip and density of the… Read More


Wally Rhines at #51DAC: EDA Grows From Solving New Problems

Wally Rhines at #51DAC: EDA Grows From Solving New Problems
by Paul McLellan on 06-24-2014 at 8:23 pm

Wally Rhines gave the keynote at DAC in 2004. One of the things that he pointed out ten years ago was that EDA revenue for any given market segment is pretty much flat once the initial growth phase has taken place and the market has been established. Incremental EDA revenue only comes from delivering new capabilities. Historically… Read More


The Secret Essence of an IoT Design

The Secret Essence of an IoT Design
by Pawan Fangaria on 06-23-2014 at 7:00 am

Today the semiconductor industry along with electronics industry is looking up to capitalize from massive expansion foreseen in IoT (Internet of Things) domain. In simple terms we can consider IoT as connectivity between machines which can communicate with each other and work as programmed. In localized applications such … Read More


Intel Invests in the Fabless Ecosystem!

Intel Invests in the Fabless Ecosystem!
by Daniel Nenni on 06-22-2014 at 11:00 am

During my illustrious career one of the most useful axioms that I use just about everyday day is: “Understand what people say but also understand why they are saying it.” This certainly applies to press releases so let’s take a look at what Intel unleashed during #51DAC (in alphabetical order):

ANSYS And Intel Collaborate
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Automotive Focus @ #51DAC!

Automotive Focus @ #51DAC!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-20-2014 at 1:00 pm

For the first time in DAC history there is an automotive track. Being a car person myself this is exciting news. I had a quick chat with Anne Cirkel, Vice Chair of DAC, and she sent me the following information to get us prepared for our week in San Francisco. The weather is going to be great so plan accordingly!

Ever increasing feature
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Taming The Challenges of SoC Testability

Taming The Challenges of SoC Testability
by Pawan Fangaria on 05-12-2014 at 10:00 pm

With the advent of large SoCs in semiconductor design space, verification of SoCs has become extremely challenging; no single approach works. And when the size of an SoC can grow to billions of gates, the traditional methods of testability of chips may no longer remain viable considering the needs of large ATPG, memory footprint,… Read More


The Matrix, your ultimate OPC

The Matrix, your ultimate OPC
by Beth Martin on 05-06-2014 at 12:47 pm

One of the many consequences of shrinking process nodes is that traditional OPC can no longer achieve good pattern fidelity with reasonable turn-around-time. But there is a solution; we made it ourselves and call it matrix OPC.

First, let’s explore the problems with traditional optical proximity correction (OPC) when applied… Read More


What Do You Do When You Are Not Designing?

What Do You Do When You Are Not Designing?
by Paul McLellan on 04-30-2014 at 10:07 pm

DAC is coming up in a month (OMG less than 4 weeks and we are so not ready I hear a hundred marketing people cry out). That gives you four weeks (and a couple of days) to tell Mentor what you do in your spare time that you are passionate about (spare time, I hear a hundred engineers cry out, what is that?) and you could win $300.

For DAC, Mentor… Read More


FinFET & Multi-patterning Need Special P&R Handling

FinFET & Multi-patterning Need Special P&R Handling
by Pawan Fangaria on 04-28-2014 at 1:00 pm

I think by now a lot has been said about the necessity of multi-patterning at advanced technology nodes with extremely low feature size such as 20nm, because lithography using 193nm wavelength of light makes printing and manufacturing of semiconductor design very difficult. The multi-patterning is a novel semiconductor manufacturing… Read More


EUV Slips a Year Per Year…Or More

EUV Slips a Year Per Year…Or More
by Paul McLellan on 04-19-2014 at 1:54 am

I was at EDPS in Monterey the last couple of days. It is one of the most interesting conferences to attend. Go next year since you already missed it this year. It is not big but the quality of the content is high. Historically the dinner in the middle is in the Monterey Yacht Club and there is a keynote speech. A few years ago it was me but this… Read More