Interesting news today : Lattice Semiconductor, FPGA vendor is buying Silicon Image. In fact, Silicon Image is a chip vendor, but also an innovator, licensing well known IP like HDMI, MHL and more. If we consider the amount paid for Silicon Image ($600 million), compared with the last full year revenue, $276M in 2014, that’s a 2.2X… Read More
Tag: sata
AMD Design IP Deal with Virage Logic… Oops… Synopsys
Whoever has said that history never repeats itself should read this recent PR from AMD! The news can be summarized in three points:
- Multi-year agreement gives AMD access to a range of Synopsys design IP including interface, memory compiler, logic library and analog IP for advanced FinFET process nodes
- Synopsys acquires rights
Interface IP Protocols: Status
If your company develops Design IP to support well-known protocols like USB, PCIe, HDMI, DDRn memory controller, MIPI specification (and more), it’s crucial to know your competition, the market size by segment, and even more important the market potential by segment. The latest can be obtained by the Compound Annual Growth Rate… Read More
High Quality PHY IPs Require Careful Management of Design Data and Processes
In last few years IP design has grown significantly compared to the rest of the semiconductor industry. There are newer IP start-ups opening across the world, particularly in India and China. Amid this rush, I wanted to understand the actual dynamics pushing this business and whether all of these IPs follow quality standards. … Read More
Interface Protocols, USB3, PCI Express, MIPI, DDRn… the winner and losers in 2013
How to best forecast a specific protocol adoption? One option is to look at the various IP sales, it will give you a good idea of the number of SoC or IC offering this feature on the market in the next 12 months. Once again, if you wait for the IP sale to have reached a maximum, it will be too late, so you have to monitor the IP sales dynamic when… Read More
Interface Protocols, USB3, PCI Express, MIPI, SATA… the winners and losers in 2012
Who makes the decision and declare that a specific interface protocol is successful? Not me, as I can only consolidate market share data and some insight information coming from the industry. The end user, when going to a shop (real or virtual) and spend a significant part of his budget to buy an electronic product, selecting among… Read More
A brief history of Interface IP, the 4th version of IPNEST Survey
The industry is moving extremely fast to change the “old” way to interconnect devices using parallel bus, to the most efficient approach based on High Speed Serial Interconnect (HSSI) protocols. The use of HSSI has become the preferred solution compared with the use of parallel busses for new products developed … Read More
What’s Inside Your Phone?
Now that the mobile market is keeping us all employed, take a close look at what is actually inside those devices we can’t live without. Before SoCs you could just read the codes on the chips. Now it is all Semiconductor IP so you have to do a little more diligence to find out what is really powering your phones and tablets. One thing you… Read More
While you’re reading the SoC manual
There was a day, not too long ago, when a software developer could be intimate with a processor through understanding its register set. Before coding, developers would reach for a manual, digging through pages and pages of 1s and 0s with defined functions to find how to gain control over the processor and its capability. One bit set… Read More
Cadence support for the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) 3.0 controller and PHY IP solution + PCIe Controller IP opening the door for NVM Express support
The press release about ONFI 3.0 support was launched by Cadence at the beginning of this year. It was a good illustration of Denali, then Cadence, long term commitment to Nand Flash Controller IP support. The ONFI 3 specification simplifies the design of high-performance computing platforms, such as solid state drives and enterprise… Read More