The global semiconductor market was weaker than expected in 1Q 2013, down 4.5% from 4Q 2012 according to WSTS. Much of the softnes was attributable to a major falloff in the PC market. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), 1Q 2013 PC shipments were down 15% from 4Q 2012 and down 14% from 1Q 2012. Other key end markets remained… Read More
Today Atrenta and Mentor announced that they were collaborating to enable accurate, signoff quality power estimation at the RTL for entire SoCs. The idea is to facilitate RTL power estimation for designs of over 50M gates running actual software loads over hundreds of millions of cycles, resulting in simulation datasets in the… Read More
Major semiconductor company successfully migrated 28nm libraries to 14nm FinFET
Santa Clara, California – May 29, 2013 – Sagantec announced that its nmigrate tool was adopted by a major semiconductor company for the development of standard cell libraries at 14nm and 16nm FinFET technologies.
This customer already… Read More
We have talked for years about RTL signoff, the idea that a design could be finalized at the RTL level and then most of the signoff would take place there. Then the design would be passed to a physical implementation team who would not expect to run into any problems (such as routing congestion, missing the power budget or similar problems).… Read More
I already wrote about Franklin Barbecue, by some rankings the best in the whole country. If you want to go there you must be there early. They start serving at 11am and run out of food around 1pm. Closed on Monday.
But there are other barbecue and similar places near the convention center. Since I’m not an Austin native (we’ll… Read More
One of the best things about being part of SemiWiki is the exposure to new technologies and the people behind them. SemiWiki now works with more than 35 companies and I get to spend time with each and every one of them. Much like I do, IROC Technologies works closely with the foundries and the top semiconductor companies so it was a pleasure… Read More
In 2002 few people outside of Steve Jobs, could have predicted the iPhone. But a forward-looking technology CEO could expect Moore’s Law to extend into portable devices as it did with PCs. While 2G and 2.5G cellular phones were shipping in the hundreds of millions, the features were rather primitive. 3G, 4G, WiFi, Bluetooth,… Read More
Recently, Forte Design Systems announced the release of a new core engine to their popular high-level synthesis tool offering. It is a large undertaking, so I asked John Sanguinetti, Forte’s CTO, to answer some questions about that development effort.
Q. How long has it been since the last major upgrade of the Cynthesizer… Read More
In advanced process technologies, electrical and timing problems due to variability can become a big issue. Due to various processing effects, a circuit performance (both speed and power) is dependent on specific layout attributes and can vary a lot from instance to instance. The accumulated effects can be severe to the point… Read More
With the support of the Heart of Technology, one of the big events this year at DAC will be the Kickin’ It Up in Austin celebration on June 3, at the amazing, world famous Austin City Limits Live! The event starts at 8:00 PM, runs until 1:00 AM and features three bands – 9-time Grammy winner Asleep at the Wheel; Vista Roads, an industry… Read More
