The Fabless Empire Strikes Back, Global Foundries and Cadence make moves into Integrated Photonics!

The Fabless Empire Strikes Back, Global Foundries and Cadence make moves into Integrated Photonics!
by Mitch Heins on 10-20-2016 at 4:00 pm

In August I wrote an article proclaiming Score 1 for IDMs vs Fabless and discussedIntel’sannouncement of volume production of their 100G PSM4 and 100G CWDM4 transceiver products.

This week the Fabless Empire strikes back.
Daniel Nenni and I attended a two-day Photonic Summit and workshop hosted by Cadence Design, PhoeniX Software
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IP Market at Your Desk!

IP Market at Your Desk!
by Pawan Fangaria on 02-01-2015 at 4:00 pm

Semiconductors have played very important role in making internet successful and that has unleashed the potential of e-commerce. Today, we see names like Alibaba, whose primary focus is on commodity trade. I couldn’t imagine an e-commerce type of web portal for semiconductor services until I looked at the eSilicon website. … Read More


Opto-Electronics to Take Care of Data Explosion

Opto-Electronics to Take Care of Data Explosion
by Pawan Fangaria on 01-28-2015 at 11:30 am

As we come nearer to an intelligent IoT world, one of the major concerns we talk every day is about data explosion, its storage, and access and so on. In the beginning of the year, I had blogged about some facts that indicated successful emergence of IoT in very near future. My faith gets further strengthened when I envision the semiconductor… Read More


Debugging a 10 bit SAR ADC

Debugging a 10 bit SAR ADC
by Daniel Payne on 10-31-2014 at 4:00 pm

SMIC (Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation) is a China-based foundry with technology ranging from 0.35 micron to 28 nm, and we’ve blogged about them before on SemiWiki. I’ve been reading about SMIC recently because they created a technical presentation for the MunEDA Technical Forum Shanghai… Read More


TCAD to SPICE Simulation of Power Devices

TCAD to SPICE Simulation of Power Devices
by Daniel Payne on 08-31-2014 at 1:30 pm

The periodic table shows that Silicon (Si) is in a column along with other elements like Carbon (C) and Germanium (Ge). With so much emphasis on Silicon, you’d think that the other semiconductor materials have been neglected a bit.

Silicon is a wonderful material and most of our consumer electronics and handheld devices … Read More


A New Digital Place and Route System

A New Digital Place and Route System
by Daniel Payne on 04-07-2014 at 10:00 am

IC place and route tools can be very high-priced EDA software to purchase or lease, so there’s some good news for AMS designers that need an affordable digital place and route tool for their mostly analog designs. Today the team at Tanner EDAannounced a totally new place and route system has been added to their Schematic DrivenRead More


From Layout Sign-off to RTL Sign-off

From Layout Sign-off to RTL Sign-off
by Pawan Fangaria on 07-25-2013 at 5:00 am

This week, I had a nice opportunity meeting Charu Puri, Corporate Marketing and Sushil Gupta, V.P. & Managing Director at Atrenta, Noida. Well, I know Sushil since 1990s; in fact, he was my manager at one point of time during my job earlier than Cadence. He leads this large R&D development centre, consisting about 200 people… Read More


The FPGA Blob is Coming…

The FPGA Blob is Coming…
by Luke Miller on 07-24-2013 at 5:00 pm

I never understood when I was a kid how ‘the Blob’ could actually catch someone but it sure did. It caught the unsuspecting, the off guard. I mean you’d have time for a soda and shower if you saw it on your road. And no, your manager is not the Blob; don’t think like that, it’s always his boss. The blob comes to consume the worker who was unaware… Read More


FPGAs – The Possibilities are Endless – Almost

FPGAs – The Possibilities are Endless – Almost
by Luke Miller on 04-26-2013 at 8:00 pm

Has your wife ever said “Your name, I’m not a computer”? Well maybe mine has. I know what you are thinking… This guy is married? Yup, I over achieved too. Have child #7 on the way Lord willing, so you probably guessed I don’t follow much of the world’s planning and such. Like you, no one in my house really understands what I do, nor cares … Read More


Silicon One

Silicon One
by Paul McLellan on 08-23-2011 at 5:23 pm

I have talked quite a bit over the last few years about how the trend towards small consumer devices with very fast ramp times. For example, pretty much any time Apple introduces a new product line (iPod, iPhone, iPad…) it becomes the fastest growing market in history. This has major implications for semiconductor design … Read More