There has been a lot written on this topic, and some expensive tools proposed to solve this issue, but it is still a concern and a mystery for many designers. The point is that whatever efforts you do, the substrate is common to an entire chip and can cause some undesired coupling if not managed properly and at an early stage. As a start… Read More
Tag: semiconductor design
How to Beat a New Entrant with Superior EDA tool
How to handle a new entrant with superior product quality is a point of worried to all EDA companies. Due to continuous research happenings and relatively lower investment requirement new and new EDA start-ups are coming in EDA domains regularly. In several situations, these start-ups offer product of superior quality in terms… Read More
A Win-Win Royalty Deal Structure in IP Business
Royalty is a critical component in any IP deal. SoC companies want IP companies to share the risk of success (or failure) of their SoC and to enable that they want IP vendors to accept a substantial part of their payment to be paid as royalty. But the customers are also not very interested to shell out huge money to IP companies if the SoC… Read More
The Grand Folly of India’s Foundry Plans
At the beginning of the year, New Delhi’s outgoing government launched an initiative purported to drive the nation’s technology independence and reduce the current account deficit on electronics imports. The initiative describes a partnership between New Delhi and two industrial consortiums for the building of semiconductor… Read More
In Case You Missed #51DAC
This will probably end up being the most memorable DAC for us since Paul and I signed hundreds of copies of our book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry”. I’m not sure how we are going to top that next year but I’m confident we will think of something. If you want to catch up on the live blogs from the last three conferences… Read More
What can you do when your fab closes down?
A recent report from IC Insights described 72 wafer fabs that have closed in the past five years. Eight more plants have gone in 2014, showing the trend is continuing.
This leaves their customers with a problem: what can they do when the fab shuts down? Some may recognise that their own technology has reached the end of its life and work… Read More
This is How We Get One Million Design Starts!
One of the most interesting demos at #51DAC was the eSilicon GDS II online quote system for TSMC. Probably because eSilicon was one of the most interesting companies exhibiting this year. While writing the book “Fabless: The Transformation of the Semiconductor Industry” we took a close look at the history of fabless semiconductor… Read More
Is SOI Really Less Expensive?
Introduction
There have been some claims made recently that planar Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator (FDSOI) is less expensive than bulk planar processes and FinFETs at various nodes. Some of these claims suggest that FinFETs in particular are significantly more expensive. My company, IC Knowledge LLC produces the most widely… Read More
Workshop: Embedded Applications and Kernels
Design Automation Conference Workshop on Suite of Embedded Applications and Kernels
In June, the first Suite of Embedded Applications and Kernels, or SEAK, workshop at the 2014 Design Automation Conference in San Francisco introduced a new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program in the area of embedded system benchmarking… Read More
Product Marketing & the Butterfly Effect
I often feel that product marketing can simultaneously be an underrated and overrated function. More often than not, it suggests product goals, pricing, and positioning. Then the marketing department must defend those positions to both engineering and sales. However, both the engineering and sales departments can claim expertise… Read More