Managing Differences with Schematic-Based IC Design

Managing Differences with Schematic-Based IC Design
by Daniel Payne on 07-02-2012 at 2:41 pm

At DAC in June I didn’t get a chance to visit ClioSoft for a product update so instead I read their white paper this week, “The Power of Visual Diff for Schematics & Layouts“. My background is transistor-level IC design so anything with schematics is familiar and interesting.

The Challenge
Hand-crafted … Read More


What’s new with HSPICE at DAC?

What’s new with HSPICE at DAC?
by Daniel Payne on 06-18-2012 at 5:50 pm

One year ago I met with Hany Elhak of Synopsys to get an update on what was new with HSPICE in 2011, so this year at DAC Hany met me at the Synopsys booth for a quick update.

HSPICE has something called Precision Parallel so with 16 cores your IC circuit simulations will have about 10 x speed up compared to a single core.… Read More


Mentor Graphics Update 2012!

Mentor Graphics Update 2012!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-30-2012 at 3:30 pm

What is new with Mentor? Quite a bit actually. About this time last year Corporate Raider Carl Icahn stirred things up with a hostile takeover attempt that ended with three Raiderettes on the Mentor Board, out of eight board members total. This year however, two of the three Raiderettes are out so it looks like Mentor is firmly in control.… Read More


SpringSoft Update 2012!

SpringSoft Update 2012!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-28-2012 at 6:05 pm

Little known fact, SpringSoft, Inc. is the largest supplier of EDA software in Asia with headquarters in both Hsinchu, Taiwan, and in Silicon Valley, CA. You will be hard pressed to find a company that does not use SpringSoft products and being located right down the street from the top two foundries doesn’t hurt either.
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Apache Ansys Update 2012

Apache Ansys Update 2012
by Daniel Nenni on 05-26-2012 at 9:26 pm

Apache is one of the brightest stars in the EDA universe. Paul McLellan has done a nice job covering them before and after the Ansys acquisition. Check out the Apache SemiWiki landing page HERE. The Apache wikis are also very well done and it has been a pleasure working with the Apache marketing team. Expect more innovative things … Read More


Intel Foundry All Hat No Cattle?

Intel Foundry All Hat No Cattle?
by Daniel Nenni on 05-12-2012 at 12:19 am

If you look real close at the #49 DAC floor plan you will see the tiny Intel booth dwarfed by those of TSMC, GlobalFoundries, Samsung, and ARM. The number one semiconductor company in the world does not have the budget for the cornerstone conference of the semiconductor ecosystem? Oh my…… Intel has a big foundry hat and no cattle… Read More


Hardware Configuration Management at DAC 2012

Hardware Configuration Management at DAC 2012
by Daniel Payne on 05-11-2012 at 4:54 pm

Next month at DAC I plan to visit the ClioSoft booth to get an update on what’s new with hardware configuration management (HCM). Last year I met with Srinath Anantharaman to get an introduction to their company and how their tools are used by both front-end engineers and back-end IC layout designers.

Srinath Anantharaman,Read More


IC design at 20nm with TSMC and Synopsys

IC design at 20nm with TSMC and Synopsys
by Daniel Payne on 05-02-2012 at 10:25 am

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While the debate rages on about 28nm yield at foundry juggernaut TSMC, on Monday I attended a webinar on 20nm IC design hosted by TSMC and Synopsys. Double Patterning Technology (DPT) becomes a requirement for several layers of your 20nm IC design which then impact many of your EDA tools and methodology.… Read More