Synopsys Offers Smooth Sailing for OTP NVM

Synopsys Offers Smooth Sailing for OTP NVM
by Tom Simon on 12-20-2018 at 12:00 pm

Nobody likes drama. Wait, let me narrow that down a bit. Chip designers really hate drama. They live in a world of risk and uncertainty, a world that tool and IP vendors spend considerable resources trying to make safer and more rational. It’s notable just how ironic that Sidense and Kilopass were duking out patent litigation in the… Read More


Implementing IEEE 1149.1-2013 to solve IC counterfeiting, security and quality issues

Implementing IEEE 1149.1-2013 to solve IC counterfeiting, security and quality issues
by Tom Simon on 10-16-2017 at 12:00 pm

As chips for any design are fabricated, it turns out that no two are the exactly the same. This is both a blessing and a curse. Current silicon fabrication technology is amazingly good at controlling factors that affect chip to chip uniformity. Nevertheless, each chip has different characteristics. The most extreme case of happens… Read More


Robust NVM Solutions for Specialty and Advanced FinFET Technologies Webinar

Robust NVM Solutions for Specialty and Advanced FinFET Technologies Webinar
by Daniel Nenni on 09-25-2017 at 12:00 pm

Webinars are a very effective communications channel in a fast paced industry like semiconductor design. If you sign-up in advance and you can’t make the live version, you will be automatically notified when the replay is available so you can watch it at your leisure. I’m guilty of this for sure, because of my hectic… Read More


Making Sensors of the World

Making Sensors of the World
by Tom Simon on 08-15-2017 at 12:00 pm

How many sensors do you think you own? Let’s start with your thermostat. It’s simple, right? You might guess one or two, and if you owned a 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] generation Nest you’d be wrong. It comes with a light sensor, heat sensor (in addition to temp), microphone, carbon monoxide sensor, smoke sensor, and occupancy sensor. Also, … Read More


Seeking Autonomy

Seeking Autonomy
by Tom Simon on 07-24-2017 at 12:00 pm

I’d wager that if I mention autonomous vehicles, the first thing that you would think of would be autonomous cars. The truth is that we will see many other kinds autonomous vehicles in the years ahead. Their applications will range from package delivery to saving lives on the battlefield. Of course, to some extent they are already… Read More


When Once is Not Enough, But Unlimited is Too Much

When Once is Not Enough, But Unlimited is Too Much
by Tom Simon on 04-04-2017 at 12:00 pm

When people think about non volatile memory, the first thing that usually comes to mind is NAND flash like that used in SSD’s or in microcontrollers to hold on-board code. Of course, there is also EEPROM and other types of NVM as well that can be used to hold data and code for the multitude of connected devices that are so common now. For… Read More


Technology Update With Andrew Faulkner and Jim Lipman of Sidense

Technology Update With Andrew Faulkner and Jim Lipman of Sidense
by Daniel Nenni on 01-23-2017 at 7:00 am

Sidense is an interesting company in a very important market segment. Sidense was founded in 2004 and their 1T-OTP memory macros are now used in hundreds of chips from 180nm to 16nm for code storage, secure encryption keys, analog and sensor trimming and calibration, ID tags, and chip and processor configuration.

If you are designing… Read More


ISO 9001:2015 – Not Just for the Big Guys

ISO 9001:2015 – Not Just for the Big Guys
by Tom Simon on 12-02-2016 at 7:00 am

If you are like me, you remember the banners that large companies put up years ago when they achieved ISO 9001 compliance. It seemed at the time that this was something only for large companies. Since its introduction in 1987 ISO 9001 has both evolved as a standard and has become an achievement that not just large manufacturing companies… Read More


CEO Interview: Xerxes Wania of Sidense

CEO Interview: Xerxes Wania of Sidense
by Daniel Nenni on 09-19-2016 at 7:00 am

This is the first in a series of CEO interviews and I thought semiconductor IP would be a great place to start. Xerxes Wania is the President and CEO of Sidense, a leading developer of Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) One-Time Programmable (OTP) IP cores. Sidense has been a part of SemiWiki since 2013 so we know them quite well. I hope the rest… Read More


SMART sensors with OTP memory for the IIoT

SMART sensors with OTP memory for the IIoT
by Don Dingee on 07-25-2016 at 4:00 pm

A few years back before IoT became the buzzword, the industrial automation community had already talking about “smart sensors” since the mid-1990s. The impetus for those discussions was IEEE 1451, a family of standards for adding intelligence and wireless communications to sensors so they could be incorporated into field networks.… Read More