Facts Support New Emergence in Semiconductor Landscape

Facts Support New Emergence in Semiconductor Landscape
by Pawan Fangaria on 01-03-2015 at 9:00 am

As we left an exciting year 2014 which is poised to record 7+ % increase in semiconductor revenue (~ $338 B) compared to 2013 (~ $315 B) and entered into another promising year 2015 for semiconductors, I looked back over the year bygone and collected inferences from some of the major important events which clearly convey how 2015 can… Read More


Synthesizing rad-tolerant RTL for FPGAs

Synthesizing rad-tolerant RTL for FPGAs
by Don Dingee on 12-09-2014 at 4:00 pm

The maiden voyage of NASA’s Orion spacecraft brought a raft of articles about how the flight computer inside is “no smarter than your phone,” running on wheezing IBM PowerPC 750FX processors. NASA’s deputy manager for Orion avionics, Matt Lemke, admits the configuration is already obsolete – at least in commercial terms. … Read More


Synopsys Q4 Earnings

Synopsys Q4 Earnings
by Paul McLellan on 12-06-2014 at 11:02 am

Synopsys announced their earnings a couple of days ago. This is actually also the end of their fiscal year. They had quarterly earnings of $539M meaning that they did just over $2B for the year. Their guidance for fiscal 2015 is revenue between $2.185B to $2.225B. They said that about 80% of that revenue is already in backlog.

But it… Read More


HLS – Major Improvement through Generations

HLS – Major Improvement through Generations
by Pawan Fangaria on 12-02-2014 at 6:30 pm

I am a believer of continuous improvement in anything we do; it’s pleasant to see rapid innovation in technology these days, especially in semiconductor space – technology, design, tools, methodologies… Imagine a 100K gates up to 1M gates design running at a few hundred MHz frequency and at technology node in the range of .18 to … Read More


Design Rule Checking (DRC) Meets New Challenges

Design Rule Checking (DRC) Meets New Challenges
by Daniel Payne on 12-02-2014 at 7:00 am

The traditional batch-oriented DRC process run as a final check to ensure compliance with foundry yield goals is quickly moving toward a concurrent DRC process performed early and often throughout design, especially at the 28 nm and smaller process nodes. What are the technology factors causing this change?

  • Increasing number
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Using HAPS-DX for system-level deep trace debug

Using HAPS-DX for system-level deep trace debug
by Don Dingee on 11-20-2014 at 4:00 pm

Debugging an ASIC design in an FPGA-based prototyping system can be a lot like disciplining a puppy. If you happen to be there at the exact moment the transgression occurs and understand what led up to that moment, administering an effective correction might be possible.

Catching RTL in the act requires the right tools. Faults in… Read More


Semiconductor IP Make the World Go Round!

Semiconductor IP Make the World Go Round!
by Daniel Nenni on 11-16-2014 at 3:00 pm

Semiconductor IP really does make the life of a semiconductor professional much easier which is why Google brings us so much IP traffic. If you look at the SemiWiki analytics, IP has always been a top draw. In comparison to standard EDA traffic, IP gets about 25% more views per blog on average. Synopsys is not only the leading EDA company… Read More


What Presentations to Attend During IP-SoC 2014 ?

What Presentations to Attend During IP-SoC 2014 ?
by Eric Esteve on 11-01-2014 at 11:00 am

Will you go to Grenoble next week to attend to IP-SoC? I will do it and will certainly listen to these Keynote Talks:

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Two New Announcements at ITC from Synopsys

Two New Announcements at ITC from Synopsys
by Daniel Payne on 10-22-2014 at 4:00 pm

Each year at the International Test Conference(ITC) we hear about the latest advances from the testability side of both EDA vendors and academics. This year Aart de Geus, Chairman and Co-CEO of Synopsys delivered a keynote speech titled, “Testing Positive, for Complexity“. Yesterday I spoke with Robert Ruiz and… Read More


Linux and the ARC of the Coherent

Linux and the ARC of the Coherent
by Don Dingee on 10-18-2014 at 7:00 am

Remember that thing called “real-time Linux”? Yeah, nobody else does either. As builds became configurable and clock speeds increased, embedded Linux manifested itself as fast enough for many applications – if a few other SoC details are addressed.

Most obvious for SoCs to run Linux is the need for a fully integrated MMU implementation.… Read More