If you sell sneakers, 1,000 pair is called a humble beginning. On the other hand, selling 1,000 licenses for specialized analog IP is a home run. Silicon Creations celebrated a home run for a critical piece of analog IP that finds its way into a diverse array of applications. Succeeding in so many markets is noteworthy, and I want … Read More
Systems engineers often want to select the best IC for their projects, yet the time required to search online, buy an Evaluation Kit, waiting to receive it in the mail, then getting it installed and setup for testing can be a barrier and lengthen the project timeline. This is where TenXer Labs comes in, as they have cleverly developed… Read More
In the rapidly evolving world of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI), technological advancements must keep pace with increasing demands for speed, efficiency, and security. Synopsys recently announced the industry’s first complete PCIe 7.0 IP solution. This groundbreaking initiative addresses… Read More
TSMC originally brought the pure-play foundry business to the United States in 1996 through a joint venture with customers Altera, Analog Devices, ISSI, and private investors (no government money). Altera is now part of Intel but ADI is still a top TSMC customer and enthusiastic supporter. I have seen the ADI CEO Vincent Roche … Read More
As technology continues to get closer to merge with our bodies, from the smart phones in our hands to the smartwatches on our wrists to earbuds. Now, it’s getting under our skin literally with a tiny microchip. A human microchip implant is typically an identifying integrated circuit device or RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification)… Read More
Despite the fact that FPGA based systems make it easy to add ‘hardware in the loop’ for verification, the benefits of HDL and gate level simulation are critical for finding and eliminating issues and bugs. The problem is that software simulators can require enormous amounts of time to run full simulations over sufficient time intervals… Read More
In early 2003 Actel announced a new product family: RTSX-A. It was a family of antifuse FPGAs aimed at the satellite market. Customers had known for a long time that it was coming and there had been prototypes available for many months. Our space customers loved the product. This was going to be a big win for us! One of the first… Read More
The foundry problem continued to plague us at Actel. We had a really complex process! But —- we needed state of the art feature sizes if we were to compete with Xilinx. TI and Matsushita had been doing a good job for us, but not in fabs with state of the art technology. We were two process generations behind! At two generations… Read More
This has been an amazing year for me both personally and professionally. Personally we are now empty nest and have our first grandchild. SemiWiki is prospering, a company that I have been involved with for ten years (Solido Design) had a very nice exit, and my time promoting semiconductor stocks to Wall Street paid off with the PHLX… Read More
We tend to focus on connectivity and sensors for the IoT, however there is a third element to what I call the “Edge Device Triad” that is just as important: actuators. Making things move with microcontrollers (MCUs) is a science in and of itself. For small size and low weight combined with decent mechanical power, designers are opting… Read More
