AMS IC Designers need Full Tool Flows

AMS IC Designers need Full Tool Flows
by Daniel Payne on 08-31-2021 at 10:00 am

AMS tool flow min

Digital IC design gets a lot of attention, because all of our modern devices primarily use digital logic, but in reality whenever you have a sensor like a camera,  accelerometer, gyroscope or any radio like Bluetooth, WiFi or NFC, then you’re really in the realm of analog, and that’s where mixed-signal  IC design comes… Read More


Affordable EDA Tools for IoT Designs, Guess which Vendor

Affordable EDA Tools for IoT Designs, Guess which Vendor
by Daniel Payne on 09-10-2018 at 12:00 pm

I just had to drive my car 7 miles from Tualatin, Oregon to visit with an EDA veteran who has played a lot of diverse roles in his career, including: IC Mask Designer, Layout Manager, Account Manager, Business Development, Director, Foundry Relations Director. His name is John Stabenow, with Mentor, a Siemens Business, and we met… Read More


Semiconductor Specialization Drives New Industry Structure

Semiconductor Specialization Drives New Industry Structure
by Daniel Nenni on 05-09-2018 at 7:00 am

When traveling the world there are the things that you see and the people that you meet. I have been very fortunate to meet some of the most amazing people and one of those people is Dr. Walden Rhines. Wally spent the first half of his career in semiconductors at TI and the second half in EDA with Mentor Graphics which gives him a cyborg … Read More


Webinar: Fastest Lowest-Cost Route to Developing ARM based Mixed Signal SoCs

Webinar: Fastest Lowest-Cost Route to Developing ARM based Mixed Signal SoCs
by Daniel Nenni on 03-28-2018 at 7:00 am

When it comes to building edge devices for the internet-of-things (IoT), you don’t want to have to break the bank to prototype an idea before diving into the deep water. At the same time, if your idea is to shrink an edge device down to it’s smallest dimensions, lowest power and lowest cost, you really want to be able to prototype your… Read More


Developing Affordable IoT Systems

Developing Affordable IoT Systems
by Daniel Payne on 02-26-2018 at 12:00 pm

The IoT market opportunities in segments like wearables, vehicles, home, cities and industrial are all growing thanks to the combination of semiconductors, sensors, software and systems technology. New hardware designs for IoT edge devices appear on a daily basis, and the companies behind these new products can often be start-ups… Read More


Mentor FINALLY Acquires Solido Design

Mentor FINALLY Acquires Solido Design
by Daniel Nenni on 11-20-2017 at 5:00 pm

I say finally because it was a long time coming… almost ten years to be exact. I started doing business development work for both Solido and Berkeley Design Automation about ten years ago and have been trying to put them together ever since. The synergy was obvious, like peanut butter and jelly. In fact, this is my third time … Read More


ARM TechCon 2017 Preview with Mentor!

ARM TechCon 2017 Preview with Mentor!
by Daniel Nenni on 10-18-2017 at 7:00 am

Next week is ARM TechCon which is one of my favorite conferences (SemiWiki is an event partner). This year is lucky number thirteen for ARM TechCon and it includes more than sixty hours of sessions plus more than one hundred ARM partners in the exposition. I will be signing free copies of our new book “Custom SoCs for IoT: Simplified”… Read More


Project Management Tools for Analog IP Verification

Project Management Tools for Analog IP Verification
by Tom Dillinger on 09-05-2017 at 12:00 pm

Large SoC design teams typically have a cadre of project managers to oversee all facets of functional verification — e.g., specification, reviews, directed testbench development, automated (pseudorandom) testcase generation, HDL coverage measurement and reporting, and bug identification/tracking database management.… Read More


How to Design a Custom SoC with Analog, webinar from ARM and Tanner EDA

How to Design a Custom SoC with Analog, webinar from ARM and Tanner EDA
by Daniel Payne on 03-23-2017 at 12:00 pm

Leading edge SoC designs can contain billions of transistors, cost over $10M to design, and take over 18 months to deliver, but not all SoCs require that much complexity, cost and time. In fact, there is a growing class of SoC designs that integrate the popular ARM Cortex-M0 processor along with analog blocks that work with sensors… Read More


IoT From SEMI Meeting: EDA, Image Sensors, MEMS

IoT From SEMI Meeting: EDA, Image Sensors, MEMS
by Daniel Payne on 11-01-2016 at 12:00 pm

Last Friday I learned something new about IoT by attending a SEMI event in Wilsonville, OR just a few short miles away from where I live in Tualatin. SEMI puts on two events here in Oregon each year, and their latest event on IoT Sensors was quite timely and popular judging by how many attendees showed up. First up was Jeff Miller from … Read More