Mentor’s New Enterprise Verification Platform

Mentor’s New Enterprise Verification Platform
by Paul McLellan on 04-10-2014 at 2:01 am

I spent the morning at Mentor where they announced their new enterprise verification platform. This was a general announcement but was attended by a lot of the international press who were over on a GlobalPress tour (the event that used to take up camp at Chaminade).

But first Wally Rhines spent 30 minutes giving a nice overview of… Read More


FD-SOI, FinFET, 3D in Monterey

FD-SOI, FinFET, 3D in Monterey
by Paul McLellan on 04-09-2014 at 5:40 pm

Last night the IEEE Silicon Valley Chapter had a panel session that was in some ways a preview of some of what will be discussed at the Electronic Design Process Symposium in Monterey next Thursday and Friday. At EDPS Herb Reiter organized a session on FinFET, 3DIC and FD-SOI (sort of how many buzzwords can you get into one set of titles).… Read More


Sonics Performance Monitor and Hardware Trace

Sonics Performance Monitor and Hardware Trace
by Paul McLellan on 04-07-2014 at 7:29 pm

As SoCs have got more complex, and with a larger and larger software content, it is no longer good enough to just monitor how the design behaves using simulation and then completely forget about it once the design is complete. What is required is the capability to monitor the design in real time (in silicon or FPGA) to see how it is behaving.… Read More


Semiconductor IP Validation Gets Faster

Semiconductor IP Validation Gets Faster
by Daniel Payne on 04-03-2014 at 11:32 am

Semiconductor IP continues to grow in use for SoC design, and many chips can now use hundreds of IP blocks from multiple vendors. Validating the quality of the IP blocks is an important step in the design process, and you could perform manual validation and inspection of each new IP block at the expense of time and engineering effort.… Read More


EDAC Mixer: Sonoma Chicken Coop

EDAC Mixer: Sonoma Chicken Coop
by Paul McLellan on 04-02-2014 at 8:00 pm

Get together with your fellow industry peers and insiders at the monthly EDAC Mixer, to the benefit of local charities. You don’t need to donate anything, you just show up and pay for your own drinks. A portion of the proceeds will go to local charities, this month to the Resource Area for Teaching (RAFT), a San Jose based non-profit… Read More


SNUG and IC Compiler II

SNUG and IC Compiler II
by Paul McLellan on 03-25-2014 at 4:04 pm

I have been at SNUG for the last couple of days. The big announcement is IC Compiler II. It was a big part of Aart’s keynote and Monday lunch featured all the lead customers talking about their experience with the tool.

The big motivation for IC Compiler II was to create a fully multi-threaded physical design tool that will scale… Read More


Imagine what all the DLP technology can do for you

Imagine what all the DLP technology can do for you
by Pawan Fangaria on 03-24-2014 at 7:00 pm

Light has become integral part of most of the electronic devices we use today in any sphere of influence; personal, entertainment, consumer, automotive, medical, security, and industrial and so on. It’s obvious; along with IoT (Internet-of-Things) devices, the devices to illuminate and display things will play a major role… Read More


IC Implementation Tool Gets a Rewrite, Now 10X Faster

IC Implementation Tool Gets a Rewrite, Now 10X Faster
by Daniel Payne on 03-24-2014 at 10:05 am

EDA start-up companies often have the advantage over established vendors by being able to start from scratch, instead of having to maintain some legacy code that no longer is competitive. But what happens when the established vendor decides to rewrite their IC implementation tools from scratch? In this case it’s good news,… Read More


SEMI Breakfast Forums: the Internet of Things

SEMI Breakfast Forums: the Internet of Things
by Paul McLellan on 03-21-2014 at 4:29 pm

Coming up on April 10th is the SEMI Silicon Valley Breakfast Forum Internet of Things—Driving the Microelectronics Revolution. It runs from 7am to 10.45am and will be held at SEMI Headquarters which is at 3081 Zanker Road in San Jose.

Widespread adoption of the Internet of Things will take time, but the movement is advancing thanks… Read More


ARM, Cadence and the Internet of Things

ARM, Cadence and the Internet of Things
by Paul McLellan on 03-20-2014 at 6:30 pm

There is clearly a lot of hype about the Internet of Things (IoT) right now, but also it is clear that it will be a real market. In fact, it already is with various medical, fitness and home-appliance products already available. At CES in January, wearables was probably the biggest trend. That doesn’t always pan out (3D TV was… Read More