TSMC and Solido on Variation-Aware Design of Memory and Standard Cell at Advanced Process Nodes

TSMC and Solido on Variation-Aware Design of Memory and Standard Cell at Advanced Process Nodes
by Daniel Nenni on 05-10-2016 at 12:00 pm

Being that TSMC and Solido are founding members of SemiWiki, you should be able find out everything you ever wanted to know on their respective landing pages. If not, just ask a question in the SemiWiki forum and I can assure you it will be answered in great detail. And here are some other interesting 2015 factoids from Solido:… Read More


Variation Aware FinFETs are Critical!

Variation Aware FinFETs are Critical!
by Daniel Nenni on 12-18-2015 at 4:00 pm

As I mentioned in “EDA Dead Pool” acquisitions in our industry will continue at a rapid pace. The latest victim is 10 year old French company Infiniscale who was recently purchased by Silvaco. This was more of a “let’s put your product through our massive sales and support channel” kind of deal so it will be 1 + 1 = 3 accretive for sure.… Read More


Moving with Purpose for Certainty

Moving with Purpose for Certainty
by Pawan Fangaria on 11-01-2015 at 12:00 pm

In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain towards west on Atlantic Ocean in search of Asia and Indies. Between his four voyages (1492 – 1502) he discovered many different islands and then what we call Americas. Although he had a compass with him, imagine searching a needle in a haystack. Even with localization of areas and then… Read More


Solidly Across the Chasm

Solidly Across the Chasm
by Paul McLellan on 10-05-2015 at 12:00 pm

Last week I wrote about EDA companies crossing the chasm, with Jim Hogan (who needs no introduction) and Amit Gupta, CEO of Solido. So how did those rules work out for Solido?

See also Getting EDA Across the Chasm: 15 Rules Before and 5 After

The founding team of Solido:

  • discovered process variation for analog was a problem as companies
Read More

Getting EDA Across the Chasm: 15 Rules Before and 5 After

Getting EDA Across the Chasm: 15 Rules Before and 5 After
by Paul McLellan on 10-02-2015 at 7:00 am

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore (not that G. Moore!) is one of the most well known books on high technology marketing. When I worked at VaST, Mohr Davidow Ventures (MDV) invested in us and Moore (not Mohr), who was a partner there, spent an afternoon with us brainstorming what it would take for us to cross the chasm. Coincidentally,… Read More


Replacing the British Museum Algorithm

Replacing the British Museum Algorithm
by Paul McLellan on 09-14-2015 at 7:00 am

In principle, one way to address variation is to do simulations at lots of PVT corners. In practice, most of this simulation is wasted since it adds no new information, and even so, important corners will get missed. This is what Sifuei Ku of Microsemi calls the British Museum Algorithm. You walk everywhere. And if you don’t walk to… Read More


Solido Wrote the Book on Variation

Solido Wrote the Book on Variation
by Paul McLellan on 09-01-2015 at 7:00 am

When I studied mathematical analysis, one of the things that we had to prove turns out to be surprisingly difficult. If you have a continuous function and at one point it is below a line (say zero) and at another point it is above zero, then there must be a point at which the value is exactly zero. In effect, a continuous function can’t… Read More


Designing for Variation

Designing for Variation
by Paul McLellan on 08-17-2015 at 7:00 am

There is a widespread phenomenon in designing chips that new effects creep up on you. First they are so small you can ignore them. Then you can add a little pessimism to your timing budget or whatever gets affected. But eventually the effects go from second order to first order. You certainly can’t ignore them, and the guard … Read More


High-Sigma Standard Cell Optimization!

High-Sigma Standard Cell Optimization!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-03-2013 at 11:00 am

Standard cell optimization is an important problem, because the speed, power, and area of cells has a direct impact speed, power, and area of the whole chip. Typically, standard cell optimization been done with simple in-house local-optimizer scripts. However, these optimizers have had several flaws: they don’t properly capture… Read More


SemiWiki Top 10 Must See @ #50DAC List!

SemiWiki Top 10 Must See @ #50DAC List!
by Daniel Nenni on 05-31-2013 at 7:45 pm


This list was compiled by the SemiWiki bloggers highlighting emerging technologies that we have written about and that will be demonstrated at the Design Automation Conference next week. We highly recommend you investigate them further during your time in Austin and please let us know what you think.

Today SemiWiki has more than… Read More