Cadence Mixed Signal Technology Summit

Cadence Mixed Signal Technology Summit
by Paul McLellan on 09-21-2012 at 6:46 pm

Yesterday I attended some of the Cadence mixed-signal technology summit. The day ended with a panel session on Are We Closing the Gap Yet in Mixed-signal Design? Richard Goering moderated. The panelists were all mixed signal experts:

  • Nayaz Khan of Maxim
  • Nishant Shah of Broadcom
  • Shiv Sikand of IC Manage
  • Bill Meier of Texas Instruments
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Atrenta Wins Gold

Atrenta Wins Gold
by Paul McLellan on 09-21-2012 at 6:16 pm

What is the most read article on design on EE Times website? Brian Bailey has an article up running through the top 10. It turns out that the #1 article is Understanding Clock Domain Issues by Saurabh Verma and Ashima S. Dabare of Atrenta. It actually had more than double the views of the second place paper. Checking clock domain crossing… Read More


Synopsys-Springsoft: Almost Done

Synopsys-Springsoft: Almost Done
by Paul McLellan on 09-19-2012 at 8:01 am

Synopsys announced today that they had completed the two main hurdles to acquiring SpringSoft. Remember, SpringSoft is actually a public Taiwanese company so has to fall in line with Taiwanese rules. The first hurdle is that they have obtained regulatory approval in Taiwan for the acquisition (roughly equivalent to FTC approval… Read More


ARM, Intel, Apple: It’s Mobile Week

ARM, Intel, Apple: It’s Mobile Week
by Paul McLellan on 09-14-2012 at 4:02 pm

As Dan wrote here, we got invited by Intel to IDF and by ARM to a cheeky little party that they organized the day before. I asked ARM if they were announcing anything and they said basically that it would be foolish to make any announcement the week of their biggest competitors big show. Well, that wasn’t a rule that Apple felt like… Read More


Chip-Package-System Webinar

Chip-Package-System Webinar
by Paul McLellan on 09-14-2012 at 2:47 pm

Aveek Sarkar presented a webinar on chip-package-system (CPS) earlier this summer. One of the big challenges with low-power electronic systems is that the performance, power and price goals are mutually conflicting. It’s like the old joke about “pick any 2”. But for a real system all need to be optimized. … Read More


Samsung Invests in Carbon

Samsung Invests in Carbon
by Paul McLellan on 09-12-2012 at 10:00 am

I’ve talked before about how venture capitalists will no longer invest in EDA companies since the prospect for a huge return just isn’t there any more. By big return I mean an acquisition at hundreds of millions of dollars, like SPC, CCR, Ambit, Cadmos, Simplex. But we all know that chips cannot be designed without software… Read More


Verifying Finite State Machines

Verifying Finite State Machines
by Paul McLellan on 09-10-2012 at 2:05 pm

Finite state machines (FSMs) are a very convenient way of describing certain kinds of behavior. But like any other aspect of design, it is important to get everything right. Since finite state machines have been formally studied, there is a lot of knowledge about the types of bugs that a finite state machine might exhibit.

When flipflops… Read More


Have You Ever Heard of the Carrington Event? Will Your Chips Survive Another?

Have You Ever Heard of the Carrington Event? Will Your Chips Survive Another?
by Paul McLellan on 09-06-2012 at 9:07 pm

In one of those odd coincidences, I was having dinner with a friend last week and somehow the Carrington Event came up. Then I read a a piece in EETimesabout whether electrical storms could cause problems in the near future. Even that piece didn’t mention the Carrington Event so I guess George Leopold, the author, hasn’t… Read More


Hardware Intelligence for Low Power

Hardware Intelligence for Low Power
by guruvadhiraj on 09-05-2012 at 9:42 am

Low power is the hottest topic these days. The designers of hardware and software are trying to find instances where they can save power . This article tries to identify the role that can be played by the hardware which traditionally it is always software who drives it.… Read More


Wiring Harness Design

Wiring Harness Design
by Paul McLellan on 09-04-2012 at 5:18 pm

In 2003 Mentor acquired a company doing wiring harness design. Being a semiconductor guy this wasn’t an area I’d had much to do with. But more than most semiconductor people I expect.

But back when I was an undergraduate, I had worked as a programmer for a subsidiary of Philips called Unicam that made a huge range of spectrometers… Read More