ICs for consumer electronics are often battery powered, which are considered low voltage designs. On the other end of the IC spectrum are high voltage devices used in many industrial applications like: automotive, aerospace, data centers, transportation and power generation. … Read More
Power devices have historically been made from silicon (Si), which has reached the limit of electric power loss reduction. With the superior physical and electrical properties of silicon carbide (SiC), we can expect to see a significant expansion in the amount of electric power conversion of electrical equipment as well as reduced… Read More
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
Silvaco is one of the sponsors of the GSA Executive Forum to be held over in VC Land at the Rosewood Sand Hill on September 10th. Note that it starts at 11.45am with a networking lunch.
We all know that Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) simulations are essential in developing processes for semiconductor manufacturing. From the very nature of these simulations (involving physical structure and corresponding electrical characteristics of a transistor or device), they are predominantly finite-element… Read More
One of Coventor’s flagship products is SEMulator3D, and at Semicon West they announced a new version, 2014.100.
SEMulator3D is a powerful 3D semiconductor and MEMS process modeling platform. It uses highly efficient physics-driven voxel modeling technology. It models the physical effects of process steps, which is… Read More
In the dim and distant past, if you wanted to learn how to use a particular EDA tool then you would go on a training course. This would often be multiple days and often a significant dollar investment too. For most EDA companies, that option still exists and the big 3 have quite extensive training catalogs.
But nowadays it is often easier… Read More
I’ve run SPICE circuit simulators since the 1970’s and they use transistor models where the device parameters are provided by the foundry. These transistor and interconnect parameters come from an engineer at the foundry who has characterized silicon with actual measurements or by running a TCAD (Technology CAD)… Read More
I talked this morning with fellow Brit David Halliday. More importantly, he is CEO of Silvaco, which he thinks must be the biggest private EDA company in the world. He didn’t reveal their revenue numbers but they have around 250-300 people and are profitable so you can make your own estimate.
David became CEO when Ivan Pesic,… Read More
Silvaco is the leading supplier of TCAD software, and a major supplier of EDA software for circuit simulation and design of analog, mixed-signal and RF integrated circuits.
The company was founded in 1984 by Dr. Ivan Pesic. The initial product, Utmost, quickly became the industry standard for parameter extraction, device characterization… Read More
